1956 Major Brake adjustment opinion

[JohnD1956]

The factory service manual says to take all four tires off, tighten the star adjuster till you can just turn a drum with a bar, and then to loosen the anchor pins, tap on the backing plate,  and retighten the pins then move on to brake shoe adjustment.  

 

Two questions:

*  What type of bar would be used to turn the drum with the tire off?  

* Is there really a need to do all four axles at one time?  I can see doing both rear axles at the same time but can't the fronts be done independently of each other and the back axles? ( I only ask cause access space in my garage is somewhat limited. )

What do you think?

 

 

 

[old-tank]

You can do one at a time or 4.

Install some lug bolts with the wheel off and use your longest screwdriver.

I never did that adjustment in the past, but when I disassembled the backing plate for gold zinc plating (to mimic the original gold cad), I adjusted the pins as described and along with turning the drums and arcing the shoes it made a huge difference.

[JohnD1956]

45 minutes ago, old-tank said:

You can do one at a time or 4.

Install some lug bolts with the wheel off and use your longest screwdriver.

I never did that adjustment in the past, but when I disassembled the backing plate for gold zinc plating (to mimic the original gold cad), I adjusted the pins as described and along with turning the drums and arcing the shoes it made a huge difference.

 

Thanks Willie.  I hope it corrects a situation where my parking brake drags a bit going forward but fails to engage if the car is rolling in reverse direction. 

[old-tank]

On 11/21/2020 at 6:17 PM, JohnD1956 said:

I hope it corrects a situation where my parking brake drags a bit going forward but fails to engage if the car is rolling in reverse direction. 

As stated it is a parking brake and is usually adequate along with the park position of the transmission.  On all of mine if I forget to release the parking brake, I can backup with little difficulty, but going forward it will barely move...just the nature of the beast.

[JohnD1956]

1 minute ago, old-tank said:

As stated it is a parking brake and is usually adequate along with the park position of the transmission.  On all of mine if I forget to release the parking brake, I can backup with little difficulty, but going forward it will barely move...just the nature of the beast.

Will your parking brakes hold on an upgrade if the vehicle is in neutral?

[old-tank]

20 minutes ago, JohnD1956 said:

Will your parking brakes hold on an upgrade if the vehicle is in neutral?

John, I don't remember ever trying.  I know that I will not depend on the park position to hold it!  Hopefully if you get the shoes adjusted and the parking brake adjusted it will help.

[JohnD1956]

1 hour ago, old-tank said:

John, I don't remember ever trying.  I know that I will not depend on the park position to hold it!  Hopefully if you get the shoes adjusted and the parking brake adjusted it will help.

 

Thanks Willie.  I can't rely on Park either so I carry a big wheel chock.  But people used to rely on Park and parking brakes. So I must have something mis adjusted.  

[60FlatTop]

The bar for turning my drums for the initial adjustment is right there by the jackstand. I tighten them up real tight before I back off on them. If they are tight enough so you fart when you pull the bar that's good.

 

[JohnD1956]

1 hour ago, 60FlatTop said:

The bar for turning my drums for the initial adjustment is right there by the jackstand. I tighten them up real tight before I back off on them. If they are tight enough so you fart when you pull the bar that's good.

 

 

Gotch Bernie.  Thanks for the advice. 

[NTX5467]

Might a bit of fancy, super-temp lube on the appropriate items allow the use of a smaller bar and less emissions?

 

NTX5467

[EmTee]

On 11/24/2020 at 5:30 PM, 60FlatTop said:

If they are tight enough so you fart when you pull the bar that's good.

 

...any tighter than that can be a problem.