Girling Self Adjusting Drum Brakes

Every time the pedal is pushed the brakes have the opportunity to adjust if needed, the pawl moves to the side of the wheel and as the brake is released the wheel turns. Normally as long as all the bits are there and clean everything will work. When fitting it is worth winding out the wheel bit till the drum can just be fitted. It takes several thousand miles before you will know if it working ok (IE you could just adjust them each service, like the old days)

mrcheerful

You're very probably right. This type were very prone to not self-adjusting after a not very long time. But first you need to establish which side if either is not working. And then you need to have the drum(s) off to be sure your lack of brakes is not due to fluid having leaked on to the shoes.

If all else looks ok, do as someone else suggested and adjust it up manually until the drum just goes on. Then spin the wheel to make sure it's not binding, and pull the handbrake on to make sure it now works.

Steve

The message from Skokiaan contains these words:

The ratchet operates the wheel every time the shoes retract far enough for the pawl to catch on the next tooth. If reassembled fully closed it can take a fair number of presses before the slack is fully taken up. I forget how many teeth there are on each wheel, but assume 40. If it has to go round five times that's 200 presses if only one tooth is caught at a time.

You can tell whether any slack is being take out by how far the handbrake cable can be pulled.

The message from "shazzbat" contains these words:

I always watch 'em work a few times before putting the drum back on to check they're actually going round.

I'm not sure if the rear brakes on my Peugeot 205 were girling or not, but they did have ratchety style self adjusters that either worked or didn't work. The adjusters IME didn't need actuating, thats why they were called "self adjusting". (c:

New OEM shoes came with new self adjusters, cheap pattern parts did not, so if you fitted shoes from the motor factors, you had to fit the old adjusters which were invariably buggered. In my experience, you could make old ones appear to work but they never did for very long.

One rear brake not working properly could be knackered self adjuster, weepy brake cylinder or worn out shoes. Might also be none of the above, those are just the problems I came across.

Douglas

They're notoriously unreliable. Best to simply replace them and pray the new ones work. They adjust with the footbrake, but it can take many pumps to set them fully from new.

I got a new set for my SD1 from Ebay, and they actually do work. Slightly different design from the originals which didn't.

Previous stuff Snipped.

Many thanks for all the replies, I had already replaced the wheel cylinders & shoes & dismantled & cleaned the self adjusters a couple of months ago, so there shouldn't be anything wrong. Its just that I thought that there was a might too much brake pedal travel compared to some of the other vehicles I drive.

It passed the MOT last week & when I picked it up I noticed much of the pedal travel had diminished & the pedal was quite hard, so I thought perhaps something they did on the brake tester had wound in the adjusters. Hence the question on what activates the adjusters.

They will have been quite enthusiastically heaving on the handbrake, and pressing the footbrake, especially if it was a bit inefficient or one-sided. This may have taught your self-adjusters what they're supposed to be doing.

Steve