Hello All
Sorry to be posting through Google, but my ISP (Verizon) is about to end Usenet access because "there are more exciting alternatives." Yeah.
Anyway, two questions for my 92 XLT (which I still have and is still alive, well and beautiful at 103,000!)
For the first time (after the dealership adjusted my emergency brakes last year), I find that to remove the left drum today, I had to back off the rear brake adjusting screw (never had to do that before).
The pads still look fine (more on that in a second).
Question 1: When I put the drum back on, do I have to manually retighten the adjusting screw? My Haynes book says "...install the drum and adjust the shoe-to-drum clearance" with no further details!!! Do I simply do some backups and let the truck adjust itself or do I have to adjust do it manually with the adjusting screw star wheel first? (I have not removed the right side drum.) If I have to do it manually, how do I know when I've turned the adjuster enough? (The Ford shop manual seems silent on this as well)
Question 2: Should I replace the shoes? The shop manual say to replace when the lining reaches 1/32 of an inch above any rivet head (Haynes says 1/16). I checked with a depth gauge. The pad clearance above the rivet heads ranges from slightly over 5/64 to 9/64. It's pretty much the same as when I posed this question here last year (I only drove about 2,000 miles because I now commute by train!).
The only issue is with the forward pad. One of the two lowest rivets is not holding down the lining completely. There's a slight space between the lining and the metal mount in the lower corner. I can pry it slightly wider with the blade of a screw driver. (I can't fit the entire blade into the space). In every other spot, the lining is held down tightly. It was like this last year, when the delaer tried to get me to replace all the brakes (including the front ones, which are slightly more than halfway worn (All the brakes are the originals).
So do I have another year or two on these, or do they need to be replaced? I'm about to go in for state inspection again.
Thanks as usual for your advice everyone!!
Regards, Anthony Giorgianni