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Beginning the disassembly of the front Dana 44 axle on my 1973 f100 4x4 FE 390 to A) discover and correct why the truck pulls to the right when sharply braking. B) replace ball joints, U-joints, rotted C-bushings, shocks, any bearings on the way in.
This is driver side front drum brake. Doing these front drum brakes, and both hub bearings/races and repacking with grease (plus new springs, shoes, wheel cylinders, etc. was my very first introduction to the mechanical world 4 or 5 years ago.
Except for a slight clockwise tilt (to the right, like 12:30) of the entire assembly, I see nothing unusual here. Does anyone with a more practiced eye see anything amiss? I’m aware that, supposedly, the smaller brake shoe should be in front, but now, as 5 years ago, I see both as identical. Both pads are about 2 inches wide, and about 13.25 inches long. The metal tangs that continue past the pad are a little different, measured right now, front shoe metal tang on top extends past brake pad or lining by just under 2.25 inches, the rear shoe top metal tang extends past pad or lining by less than 2.38. The bottom shoe tangs measure both front and back at around or a little over 1.12 inches of bare metal past pad or lining.
So the driver side front drum brake is good with the rear shoe being FRACTIONALLY larger?
Appreciate very experienced responses, please. Thank you…
6x8 beat me to it. Pull the passenger side and have a look. I do not have a 4x4 with front drums, but I wouldn’t expect them to be any different than other drums. The longer surface shoe should be to the rear. I recall doing the same thing on my 68. Did one side and got to the other and noticed both shoes were smaller than the others. Realized my mistake and had to disassemble the “completed” side and fix it
Heres a pic of each side on mine for reference... something looks off with your shoes. Your pins out of the slave cylinder look wonky too.
Driver Passenger
On the rear drums there will be one larger pad towards the back of the truck, one smaller towards the front. That is TYPICAL for the rear drums. The FRONT drums however have an offset in the shoes to compensate for the force of stop... The way mine are set up is TYPICAL for the front. I am running centric shoes. If ya need parts #'s let me know, I will have to look them up. Or rock auto spells it out pretty clear on their website as another reference.
Well, this is the passenger side front drum brake. Little harder to get off, again don’t really see anything wrong or broken. It’s dirtier, both sides have a little sparkly fluffy black dust piled on the top of wheel cylinder and on top of the spindle base up against backing plate under wheel cylinder, little bigger pile on passenger side. This assembly might be rotated faintly counterclockwise, like 11:45, but probably an illusion. Front of truck is to the right in photo.
Once again, front and rear shoe measured; 2 inches wide on front and back, but front overall total length metal tang to metal tang is a little over 15.5 on front shoe, and a little under 15.44 inches on rear shoe. Difficult to get tape measure to be consistent. Looks like this side might be on backwards. Very little difference.
let me re-measure driver side total overall length like this to be consistent…
Redoing driver side using same method as other side; total overall tang to tang: on front driver side shoe is 15.38. And rear driver side shoe is a little under 15.5, so driver side again appears correct, passenger side possibly backwards, but seriously the difference is so minute; WOULD IT CAUSE PULLING TO THE RIGHT WHEN BRAKING SHARPLY?
With regards to it pulling to the right when braking: I would say you had the right side more tightly adjusted than the driver's side. Hence why when you brake it pulls to the right. Also, the larger amount of brake dust accumulation on that side supports my rationale as it would rub more going down the road, creating more dust.
When I adjust drums, I adjust them till I cant spin the wheel. I then back them off till there is a light drag. This makes sure the shoes are centered in the drum.
For clarity: I assembled and wrote this down in photo. First driver side reading I added the two numbers in my first post, then for consistency measured it a second time with same method as passenger side. While the numbers jump around a bit, they both say the same thing. Passenger may be reversed. When you talk about front being smaller and rear being bigger, how is that measurement taken? Length? Width? Thickness?…
For clarity: I assembled and wrote this down in photo. First driver side reading I added the two numbers in my first post, then for consistency measured it a second time with same method as passenger side. While the numbers jump around a bit, they both say the same thing. Passenger may be reversed. When you talk about front being smaller and rear being bigger, how is that measurement taken? Length? Width? Thickness?…
No offense to anyone, all four shoes only have minute differences in width, but the front shoes on both sides seem a bit thinner, but that could be due to other factors, like incorrect assembly, other structural problems that have changed the intended or original thicknesses. Other than driver side being twisted or rotated a bit, and the indications of measurements on yellow note pad picture showing minute differences in the four pads, I’m not seeing anything significant here. What have I missed?
The rear shoe should be noticeably bigger than the front shoe, not fractionally.
Have a look at the passenger side as well.
The two smaller shoes may have been fitted together on that side ??
All 4 pads are about the same thickness, all four are two inches wide, all look the same, driver side and passenger side both have a shoe that is 15.5 inches long, then the remaining 2 shoes, one on each side are what, a tenth of an inch in overall length difference? (See my photo in other recent post of yellow pad with lengths written next to each other). So where is the obviously longer shoe? What dimensions should I measure?
With regards to it pulling to the right when braking: I would say you had the right side more tightly adjusted than the driver's side. Hence why when you brake it pulls to the right. Also, the larger amount of brake dust accumulation on that side supports my rationale as it would rub more going down the road, creating more dust.
When I adjust drums, I adjust them till I cant spin the wheel. I then back them off till there is a light drag. This makes sure the shoes are centered in the drum.
The dust pile is a very good point, and certainly a clue to be considered. As a beginner with no idea on anything I rely solely on multiple YouTube videos to do this stuff. When I realized that the truck was pulling to the right, I attempted a couple of times to readjust them, then being an idiot, decided I’d try to tighten the left more to counter the pull, and then to loosen the right to balance things out. Nothing changed. Fast forward to a couple years later (after having worked on many other systems on the truck) went back to the pulling issue a week or two ago and did my best to adjust brakes as carefully and equally as I could. Still pulls to the right. Both tightened up significantly. And still pulled right in sharp braking. But two things: one, I noticed that if I hand turned the two front tires I could feel resistance than no resistance than resistance then no resistance as though the system had “dead spots”. Maybe that’s normal, maybe that’s a clue. Second, sorting out the YouTube videos, the most consistent method used to adjust the brakes is to “spin the tire as hard as you can with one hand on top of the tire” and “adjust brakes til tire will only spin about 1-1.5 times before stopping on its own. This is mostly the method I have used, setting it around 1.25 revolutions on the last attempt last week (and still pulls right). Using the “loosen the brakes completely, then tighten till it barely starts to contact was too subjective to duplicate; I just don’t have the hand calibration to notice, particularly with that “dead spot” thing going on. I only could sense a change when it Definitely was tightening up. Still with any method, over the last few years, it still pulls to the right. Your method of tighten till no movement then loosen til light drag would be exceptionally painful. That tiny little adjustment hole on the back of the mounting plate is difficult to just see and tighten, to stick two screwdrivers in that hole probing to push that lever (which is impossible to see) off the adjustment wheel, and turn the wheel to loosen brakes and see it all at the same time: very painful—you are a better man than me…
6x8 beat me to it. Pull the passenger side and have a look. I do not have a 4x4 with front drums, but I wouldn’t expect them to be any different than other drums. The longer surface shoe should be to the rear. I recall doing the same thing on my 68. Did one side and got to the other and noticed both shoes were smaller than the others. Realized my mistake and had to disassemble the “completed” side and fix it
Is there a way of telling whether the factory messed up and sent me 4 front shoes or four rear shoes? Or sent me 4x2 brake shoes rather than 4x4 brake shoes, or for that matter sent me shoes for a 1985 Chevy Sierra? When they were just out of the box I remember puzzling over which shoe was “bigger” and which one was “smaller”….
