Been putting it off, but it needs to be done.My 15' T Bucket has 40 Ford Front Brakes and I need to adjust them.Its literally been 20 years since I've had a Hot Rod with 40 Ford Front Brakes. Whats the easiest way to adjust these ? I know there was a trick to it..
Ditto on Bruce's link above. This is how I do it also. One added note: If your drums have been turned to the point where they are oversize (.090" or more) then you may have a real hard time getting a good adjustment. It happened to me. Once I replaced the drums with new my brake adjustment came in very easily and work real well.
Yeah, I've actually seen old boxes of replacement brake shoes that were marked ".060 oversize" and "semi-finished" for such occasions. Remember those "arcing machines" for brake shoes? You measured the curvature of the i.d. of the drum and custom ground the shoes to fit it exactly for increased contact area.
Looking at the backing plates, spin wheel, apply box wrench to hex head turn to left on left head until shoe starts to make contact----repeat on right hex head turn to right---Go to opposite side & repeat!!-------------Don
The LOWER adjustment on '39-42 brakes must be done first to center things when you put in new shoes. Don't do upper ones until those are done. After shoes are centered and adjusted, you do not need to use the lowers again unless you think you have poor contact or you change shoes. Major adjustment, minor adjustment in Ford manuals. Probably your shoe arc and drum arc will differ after 70 years of use...ideally, shoes shoulf be rearced to fit drums. It is hard to find anyone who has the setup fot that. If arcs don't match, you will need to keep adjusting and wear them in, perhaps repeating the centering op. Some folks scrutinize scuff areas on shoes and rework the arc a bit by hand with body grinder...generally, drum is too large and you need to taper down ends of shoes a bit. General goal on Ford brakes is to get shoes as close to drum as you can without drag. This can mean starting the process with some slight drag with new shoes... As noted above, you will need to keep at them for a while unless arcs match, which is likely going to rquire arc ginding or new drums.
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