rear brake adjustment

B

bigtimeweb

New member
We did a complete overhaul on all 4 wheels yesterday.

I need to adjust the rears, and was wondering if anyone could tell me if I have to have both rear wheels off the ground to adjust using a spoon? Unfortunately I'm at a different location now and I only have my stock bottle jack, so was hoping the answer is no :thanks:
 
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The answer is No.

But be careful with the spoon thing. If you ratchet them down too far you're screwed. The best way is to pull the drum off, adjust the brake down so it's tight enough to just barely get the drum back on. Another method is to simply use the parking brake up and down repeatedly. That method requires that your mechanisms be in top operating condition.
 
Ive messed with the parking brake thing last night and this morning - I think they are just way too out of whack...my ebrake has no grab at all.

What I want to do is lift one wheel at a time and spin it as I adjust it, just wanted to make sure before I go to the effort that I didnt need to lift both wheels to do that.

Thanks for the help
 
I just replaced my axle seals and put new shoes on last night. The brakes are self adjusting and it is very easy to set in the right spot.

When you re-assemble the brakes, you thread the adjuster all the way in before fitting the shoes so they are in as far as possible. Fit the shoes and put the drum on. Then continuously operate the park brake lever until you hear the clicking of the adjuster stop. Keep the park brake lever button pressed in as you do this. It took about 30 clicks for mine to get right.
 
Hi Techno

Thanks for the confirmation of that. I'll try it again, but I think we must have routed that cable at the bottom that connects to the left shoe lever wrong, because Ive pumped that ebrake a LOT!
 
Bump N Run said:
I remember doing the E brake method a couple of years ago. I thought you were supposed to drive in reverse about 5-10 MPH while pumping the E brake up and down. Anyway, thats what I had read back then.
Click to expand...

That's what I read also, and that's the method I tried. Fact is, its a new day and instead of OCDing about their adjustment I now cant get the "I think we routed that cable wrong and I should have replaced those rear cylinders" out of my head.

Think I'm just going to pull the drums ONE MORE TIME to do the cylinders, verify all the springs and cables are in their proper place, and then adjust them as much as I can manually just to fit the drums back on.

THEN I'll give the ebrake pump adjustment a try again. :dammit:

anyone have opinions about non OEM rear cylinders or should I just stick with OEM?

Thanks for the help.
 
Make sure your bellcranks (the lever on the back of the drum that the cable attaches to) are not seized up rendering the e-brake useless. This is very common up here in the snowbelt, but if you run in the mud I'm sure it can happen where you are.
 
TheDurk said:
Make sure your bellcranks (the lever on the back of the drum that the cable attaches to) are not seized up rendering the e-brake useless. This is very common up here in the snowbelt, but if you run in the mud I'm sure it can happen where you are.
Click to expand...

If this is depicting the 'Bellcranks' then definitely not seized as we had to move that over to the new shoes. Thanks for the idea though! That cable I remember was quite slack - perhaps I should look for the adjustment underneath.
 

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techno said:
I just replaced my axle seals and put new shoes on last night. The brakes are self adjusting and it is very easy to set in the right spot.

When you re-assemble the brakes, you thread the adjuster all the way in before fitting the shoes so they are in as far as possible. Fit the shoes and put the drum on. Then continuously operate the park brake lever until you hear the clicking of the adjuster stop. Keep the park brake lever button pressed in as you do this. It took about 30 clicks for mine to get right.
Click to expand...

Ditto these comments. Put your drums on FIRST, then crank up and down until the clicking stops. I did this last weekend and it worked fine once I understood why you're supposed to do it.
 
jsmithjr732 said:
Ditto these comments. Put your drums on FIRST, then crank up and down until the clicking stops. I did this last weekend and it worked fine once I understood why you're supposed to do it.
Click to expand...

In park? In Neutral? In reverse? Im going to mess with it again next weekend. Mondays suck.
 
bigtimeweb said:
If this is depicting the 'Bellcranks' then definitely not seized as we had to move that over to the new shoes. Thanks for the idea though! That cable I remember was quite slack - perhaps I should look for the adjustment underneath.
Click to expand...

Nope. You can't see any of the bellcrank in that picture. Most of it, including the pivot which tends to seize, is mounted on the lower rear part of the BACK of the drum where the e-brake cable attaches. Inside, the only part of the bellcrank is a small hook on its end that comes through a slot in the back that attaches to the other end of the short little cable that you can see an inch below the tip of your 'THIS' arrow. The hook itself is hidden behind the rear shoe at around 8 o'clock in your pic--just barely visible between the hub and the shoe. If the bellcrank is seized, that cable stays slack when e-brake is pulled and neither adjustment nor e-braking occurs.

There is a screw on the bellcrank on the backside for adjusting the slack in the little inside cable. You won't find it underneath. Post back if you need the procedure and spec.[EDIT--this is covered in Techno's second link posted above.]
 
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techno said:
I just replaced my axle seals and put new shoes on last night. The brakes are self adjusting and it is very easy to set in the right spot.

When you re-assemble the brakes, you thread the adjuster all the way in before fitting the shoes so they are in as far as possible. Fit the shoes and put the drum on. Then continuously operate the park brake lever until you hear the clicking of the adjuster stop. Keep the park brake lever button pressed in as you do this. It took about 30 clicks for mine to get right.
Click to expand...

THANK YOU FOR THIS! I knew that our rear drum brakes were supposed to self-adjust. But, I have never seen anyone describe this method. It worked perfectly to dial in my new rear brake shoes. Thanks so much!
 
Zhehan said:
THANK YOU FOR THIS! I knew that our rear drum brakes were supposed to self-adjust. But, I have never seen anyone describe this method. It worked perfectly to dial in my new rear brake shoes. Thanks so much!
Click to expand...


You are suppose to use the parking brake arms with the springs removed to set the shoes against the drums and adjust the bolt to have about 1/16” gap will bell crank pulled back. Then mess with the auto adjuster.

It’s important to get the e-brake adjustment set first.


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