rear brake adjustment

[Woodie]

I wanted to adjust the rear brakes tonight. I looked at the manual. Seemed easy enough. Remove wheel pull out rubber plug, turn screw clockwise. Ok what the heck is inside my wheel. It looks like I need a roller skate key to turn the adjuster, not a screw drive. I cannot get a socket in there. Is there a special tool. This adjuster setup is not in the manual????

 

[jlaird]

Heh?

 

[Woodie]

Jack, That's what I said........

I took the drum off to look at this setup. There is no other adjuster inside the wheel.

The cylinder is at the top, and at the botttom at about the6:30 position is the adjuster? where the bottom of the two shoes meet on either side of the adjustment thing. There is a hole in the middle, and in this hole is a square pin like you would find on an old pair of roller skates.

Wait a minute ...be right back

 

[Woodie]

ok in the manual it says "early cars" were adjusted from the wheel side of the drum, through the opening. On "later cars" the adjuster was on the back of the of the brake plate and was a square head adjustment bolt.

What is an early or late car ....mine is a 1970.

If it is a late car, then If i pull the plug from the front ,am I looking at the wrong end of the adjuster? Maybe I should be back under the car looking on the inside of the brake plate ??

 

[wolfman]

Woodie,
Go to the Spridget Tech section under "Web Sites We Host", look under The braking System, Figure M.3 should be what your 70 looks like. It takes a little wrench. Easy to adjust.

 

[10musketeer]

My '71 has the adjuster on the back, though it took about 20 min to find under all the crud! I just used a crecsent wrench and turned it until the drum was not movable, then backed it off a little so the drum moved without the brake dragging. Not tough at all, but I still strutted around the garage gruntin' for about an hour. At least I had the garage door closed.

 

[healeyboz]

Woodie, Your brake adjustment is on the back of the plate--on the bottom. Clockwise should tighten up the shoes for you. P.S. It takes a small open ended wrench.

 

[jlaird]

And that folks is why I said Heh. Was not sure without some research though and knew you guys with late models would know.

 

[healeyboz]

59 with late model brakes on the rear, here.

The front adjustment throught the drum is for the older model adjuster and mask, Woodie.

 

[Trevor Jessie]

It is worth your time to remove the drum and look at how the adjuster works and be sure that the both sides of the adjusters move.

 

[Woodie]

So from this I have learned that to adjust the rear brakes, the adjuster is on the back of the brake plate. I have also learned that the drum with the rubber plug and adjuster hole is the same on early cars and late cars (hence my confusion) and finally I should remove the drum and check that the adjuster is working correctly, (I can then lubricate both the outside adjuster nut and threads and the mechanism inside) put the drum back on and adjust the brakes properly. (and while I'm there make sure the rear seal screw inside the drum is tight and the two outside ones are tight when reassembling the whole thing, don't want any oil leaks now do we.) Cool, thanks guys