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Rear Brake Adjuster not adjusting - where am I wrong?
Hope everyone is having a reflecting and relaxing Memorial Day Weekend.
While my engine is out, I'm going back into my rear suspension and brakes. The first time around, I wasn't happy with the adjusting movement of the rear-driver's drum, but I let it be (dangerous, I know...) so I bought a kit and went back into the rear left again, and couldn't do any better the 2nd time, although I think I can describe what's wrong, I just don't know how to correct it. The adjuster lever is resting on the shoe and as such, won't engage the ratcheting wheel. If I pinch the cable and shorten it, it will then pick the lever up enough to engage the adjuster wheel. So...what am I doing wrong. Pictures below...good side then the bad side... The functioning side Lever is off the shoe The malfunctioning side Lever rests on the shoe
The more I look at it...clue #2..? Who has noticed that the side that is misbehaving the whole assembly is rotated kinda clockwise? Could that be important?
It appears that you have the brake shoes on the non working side reversed. The shoe with the shorter pad goes on the other side. Maybe that has something to do with the adjuster not working right.
After looking at it some more I am wrong.
Like others had posted, this is what the shoe assembly should look like (my 73 F100) :
I would also recommend applying a light coat of grease on the shoe adjusting cable and groove guide, the brake shoe pin mounts, and the retainers to slow down the corrosion and rust if one wants these parts to last much longer...
I would also at the very least - highly recommend applying anti seize lube on the brake shoe adjusting threads, both male and female if one wants this vital part to continuously work :
I also grease coated the base of the shoe mounting pins behind the backing plate to further slow the aging process, added a vinyl vacuum cap to cover and protect the bleed valve, and applied anti seize lube to protect the small mounting bolts of the wheel cylinders so they will not rust for easy distant future removal with no hassle :
I also lightly coated grease or anti seize lube on all mating surfaces where any one part has to move or any two parts that rub together to further the reliability of brake shoe assemblies.
Picture #2 &3 show the spring from the lever to the shoe not installed right. The coiled end of the spring has to be in the hole and not hooked in the hole.
Firstly: Thanks to everyone who chimed in. Upon taking a good look today, the shoes were in fact oriented correctly with the "short" shoe in the front. The issue was, as Kenny correctly pointed out, the spring that hooks to the adjustment lever was not installed correctly into the shoe. This made the spring artificially long which created just a little extra slack in the cable. The other issue was that the cable corner guide had a tendency to pop out of its locating hole, which again, gave the cable just a little too much slack. Once I corrected the spring installation and made sure the guide stayed were it was supposed to be while wrestling with the springs, the lever is where it is supposed to be and functions correctly. Thanks Kenny and everyone!
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Rake spring
