Cable breaks

[Guest Pete Morris]

Cable breaks

Hi can anyone help I own a 1930 Studebaker 6 with cable brakes I have removed the slack from the cables and set the shoes to 015" inside the the drums and they are still not working ????

[sambarn]

Pete, I have had some decent degree of luck working with non-hydraulic brake systems. There are a large number of questions and answers neccessary to diagnose the problem but let's look first at the basics. Being lever and cable actuated, The movement distance of the pedal is transferred into the movement distance of the wheel mounted brake assembly. What is 9-18" of pedal travel becomes 2"-3" of travel at the final cable attachment point, locate at the top of the arm that comes out through the back (inside) of the drum. This operates an eccentric (metal wedge shaped like an 0). as this eccentric turns it presses the brake shoes, they travle outwards anywhere from 1/100th - 1/4 of an inch.

(0) This crudest possible computer diagram (yes the (0)) might help a bit. The parentheses are the shoes inside the brake drum. As the O rotates, it would exert pressure on the shoes, pushing them against the drum and slowing or stopping the rotation of the drum (movement of the car).

For this to happen well, all the levers and rods must be properly aligned, positioned and functional. Here is where the pertinent questions begin:

What is the car? (In proof reading myself I realize I got caught up in the response and didn't pay attention to the OP: he had already answered that.)

Do you have a manual with diagrams of the braking system?

DId these brakes function properly before you adjusted them?

Has the car sat for a while?

The first just because I'm curious and it would help to know if there are solid rods involved in the system (most I have encountered have rods that act with the lever system and are length adjustable).

The second question, if yes, would give you a visual reference for tuning the system.

Question three would be to determine if there is a part of the system that is no longer operating. These are almost all metal on metal situations and can easily rust solid after sitting a bit (question 4) or quite simply break or seize. If you can answer these I think we can help you out with this.

- Sam

Edited February 25, 2014 by sambarn (see edit history)

[Owen_Dyneto]

Are the brakes 3-show Bendix-Ferar, or 2-shoe Bendix, or perhaps Lockheed? Sorry, I know very little about Stubebakers but they are Bendix Ferar 3-shoe brakes you'll find an original adjustment guide on Packardinfo.com. that may be helpful.

http://www.packardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/1929_BendixBrakesServiceBulletin.pdf

Edited February 25, 2014 by Owen_Dyneto (see edit history)

[Mark Shaw]

I checked the Vintage Veteran Brake Repair Manual I have (Good Publication for this).

It shows Studebaker made their own brakes up to 1926. After 1926 they were made by Bendix.

This manual has all the details on the Bendix systems.