more series brakes (rear adjusters..)

Lots of things can wear there, could be a cumulative effect. The snail cam can wear, the pin on the shoe, the drum itself ... I've seen one easy fix, slip a little bit of brake tube over the brake shoe pin will give you another 1mm of adjustment, for example.

Can you turn the adjuster full circle (ie > 360°), albeit only one way?

Needs investigation at the very least, of course. No brakes is not acceptable as you point out!

On or around Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:40:26 +0100, Tom Woods enlightened us thusly:

could be worn shoes or worn drums - there's a wear limit cast into the drum somewhere. measure 'em...

also, pull it off and make sure the adjuster is a) working and b) you're turning it the right way. That one's caught me out more than once - some of the adjusters are clockwise and some ain't.

ive had the drum off and watched the adjuster turning round. it will go all the way (until it hits the flat when turning one way). The snail cam doesnt look that worn.

Like i said - the pads are probably less than half worn.

I do like the idea of adding extra adjustment - i might try that. otherwise im guessing that my drum must be knackered :( It does look original so it hasnt done too badly i guess!

any wear limits in mine are now more like rusty lumps. any idea what they should say? Id have thought that there would be an obvious lip if it was very worn or do they not tend to go like that?

tis working and its a backwards one! :) (left=more brakes, right=less)

On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:50:58 +0100, Tom Woods scribbled the following nonsense:

depends, my old s3 had no lip, but had a lot of travel to get the brakes working, and that was with new shoes, I found that I could adjust the brake adjuster so that it was fully adjusted, and still there was very little binding. Bought some new drums and the thing stopped on sixpence with no adjustment and very little pedal travel. Series vehicles having bad brakes is a fallacy if the parts are correct!

On or around Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:49:24 +0100, Tom Woods enlightened us thusly:

Pads? you mean shoes?

check the drums for wear. I had similar problems on an old SII - one drum would only work properly with near-new shoes, 'til I replaced it.

On or around Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:50:58 +0100, Tom Woods enlightened us thusly:

It'll be in the book of lies. Which is outside somewhere. I did also have a cracked drum on a series once.

10 inch drum - max 0.030 inch (0.75 mm) oversize with standard linings is the LR recommendation.

There's the possibility that someone may have machined it out already hence the lack of a too obvious lip.

If the drum will not lock with the adjuster there are limited possibilities most of which have already been mentioned but are restricted to the drum (worn), shoe/lining (worn lining, worn adjuster pin, wrong parts), adjuster snail (worn, wrong part(insufficient lift)), backplate (loose/out-of-position fixed pivot pin).

I would expect a correct and unworn adjuster to cope with fully worn linings and a drum worn to the reclamation limit.

right then - sounds like I may need to buy a new drum too :(

It does look pretty old and is fairly flakey round the edges so its not too surprising.

I did have really good brakes for a while - which must have been when i last put new shoes on the rear..

yeah yeah :p

Richard - price check in aisle 1! drums for series SWB rear axle...

Do you mean "pedant" - while we are being pedantic? JD

I've found a common fault to be a hamfisted adjustment with the snail cam having been forced against the pin on the front shoe and consequently bending the pin away from the cam therefore losing adjustment that way. Jack up and turn wheel whilst moving adjuster until some binding can be felt then back off adjuster slightly until wheel turns freely, do not turn adjuster up hard. It might seem a silly question but you *do* have the front shoes on the right side with the springs behind the adjuster cams, they are handed. I have also known the adjuster spindle to turn without moving the snail cam, sometimes hard to spot.

Martin

On or around Fri, 22 Sep 2006 06:42:38 +1000, JD enlightened us thusly:

it's a bit of shed-lore that escpaed.

the normal drill is for someone to say "pendant" about something, someone else to repsond "anglepoise", and then a further person to post "inspection, with naff blub".

I guess you had to be there.

On or around Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:12:15 +0100, "Oily" enlightened us thusly:

I had that on the back of the 110, cam fell off the spindle. Made it a new cam and tack-welded it on.

are you calling me hamfisted! :p

I've not checked if the pin is bent. it was turning and pushing the shoe out - obviously not enough to bind on the drum though

spring does go from the front shoe behind the adjuster.

No, it might have been done before you got it. ;-) Probably just a worn drum then.

Martin

I am convinced it is a sinister plot by the manufacturers of replacement drums/shoes to sell more by making it impossible to adjust the brakes up once the shoes are slightly worn. Certainly it doesn't take much slack in each drum to provide a lot of pedal travel. Especially on the SWB where there is only one adjuster on each drum (who thought that one up? just because the trailing shoe *should* self adjust doesn't mean it will...) Fitment of LWB 11" brakes to the front of SWB's not only improves the braking considerably but makes it easier to adjust. But you need to fit a LWB master cylinder as well, otherwise there's too much pedal travel anyway due to having twin cylinders on the front. (i have found......) Whilst you're about it, if you can get hold of a set of back brakes, the 11" rear drums have two adjusters, rather than the one on a SWB.

The best method of eliminating this slack in the drum is to fit a steel sleeve over the pin on the shoe which the adjuster cam sits on. This moves the shoe further away, thus getting much better results with the adjusters. The ideal adjustment with new shoes and drums should be about 3-4 clicks on the adjuster to bring the shoes gently into contact with the drum. Best adjustment is to notch it up untill you can feel the shoe dragging as you turn the drum, and then back off one notch.

Alex

done the front brakes! got LWB fronts with a LWB master cylinder and servo. still got standard rears. when they worked the brakes were great! (with quite a lot of front bias!)

i will probably try enlarging the pin before i go out and buy drums.

A bit of Bundy pipe will do the trick nicely, if you have the larger sizes around.