My brain is beginning to hurt from this one. Here is the situation: my 55 Ford Fairlane has an odd brake pull that only happens after I've been driving the car for a while. when I first start out in the car, it will stop nice and straight. After a while, when I tap the brakes, the car will want to pull to the right. It's pretty pronounced, and in direct proportion to how hard you hit the brakes. The car still has the factory drums on the front, and a later set of drums in the rear. I did convert the brakes from manual to power with a kit I bought off ebay 2 years ago. At the same time, I rebuilt the brakes on all 4 corners with new hoses, shoes, hardware (later hardware with self adjusters) and wheel cylinders. I did not replace the hard lines as the appeared to be in good shape. I've tried multiple times to adjust the brakes, but like I said, it seems like it stops nice and straight when I first start out with the car, so I don't think this is an adjustment issue. Any ideas?
Pull the drums. Take the self adjusting crap out & replace with the parts you took out. Sand the linings. Sand the drums. Pull the boots back on the wheel cylinders to find the leaker & rebuild. Put everything back together, adjust & bleed ...
As far as I can tell, it's not leaking anywhere. I'll definitely take another look though. Thanks for the input...
Had acquired a 56 Lincoln coupla years ago that not only pulled to the right, it locked up the right front wheel the 1st time out. Power brakes were very good. (Wife never would ride in it again.) After scewin' around with things for some time (had drums turned, cleaned the shoes w lacquer thinner, etc) finally replaced the shoes, and then it worked fine. Never did anything to the rear brakes. I suspect that either the left shoe(s) got fluid on them and let that side slip a little, OR the right side got fluid on it and made it stick. Not sure which is the case. Have heard of both scenarios.
Is the thinking that the inside of the hose has a defect that is acting like a one way valve and holding pressure on one of the wheel cylinders (getting worse each time I step on the brakes)? They're relatively cheap, I can order in a set of front hoses and go from there. I just want to understand the theory behind it being brake hoses.
The theory on a ba flex line i it bein to tear an the flap han own. it will either block the flui oin to cylener or block it bleein off when petal releae . My keyboar failin . only have followin - abc ef hi klmnop r tuvwxyz.
I like this idea a lot, but at the moment I don't have a lot of time on my hands. It's also pretty difficult to get some help to bleed the brakes in the first place. (I usually wear out whatever goodwill I have stored up when I ask the wife to help out with stuff like this) I'm almost positive that isn't the case. However, I could see that creating a brake pull, but it seems like it would be all the time, no?
one more thing to check. You did not say how many miles you put on the new shoes? If the drums were cut oversize, it will take a long time to have the new shoes wear in, to have full contact all over the entire shoe. If the drums are way oversize, you might see that only half of each shoe is even touching. That means the good half of each shoe is getting glazed from trying to stop the car.
Interesting point, but if this was a glazing problem, it seems like it would be consistent, no? Not good when I start driving, then rapidly turning to guano, then good again the next day. Right?
If I ever get married again, The vows will be written to include "help bleed brakes" and stuff like this
On a 55 there is an eccentric bolt adjustment in addition to the star wheel. Do you have a shop manual? Before I converted to discs mine would swap lanes in a hard stop.
I wasn't aware of that and don't have a manual. Here again though, wouldn't this be a thing that would make it pull all the time?
pull the hubcaps, take it for a ride and when it starts pulling stop the car and feel the hubs. which one is hot?
If your keyboard is failing you can substitute an X for the bad letter then fix it with spell check. mx kexboard is busted = me keyboard is busted
The eccentric adjustment centers the shoes inside the drum so it does indeed affect whether or not the brakes pull.
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