Early Ford juice brakes

D

Deucenut

Member
Hello, I have 39-42 ford brakes on the front of my 32 phaeton. I recently replaced both front wheel cylinders and then adjusted the brakes as per my dad taught me. I have currently bled the brakes 4 times starting from the furthest wheel to the closest wheel to the MC, which is a single reservoir, no power brakes. When I step on the brake pedal, I have a good amount of pedal. When I start the car, step on the brakes and shift the transmission to drive (automatic C6), the pedal drops about an 1/8th of the distance.

Does anyone know why this pedal drop would occur? Thanks in advance.
 
Did you replace the shoes ? If you did replace them did you re-arc them to the drums ? Same if you turned drums. Your lower eccentrics are not adjusted correctly I believe if above is all good.
 
No I didn’t replace the shoes. They had a lot of material. But I also don’t think they are arced to the drums.
 
I agree with Kiwi on the lower eccentrics. When you shift to drive with your automatic, the wheels jerk slightly from the shifting action, centering the shoes and lowering the pedal slightly. Those double lower eccentrics take longer to center properly, not one of Ford's better ideas.
 
Ok thanks fellas…so by “adjusting correctly” the lower eccentrics, do you mean give them more or less drag? And thanks again, this is my first car with early ford brakes…my others have had discs in the front and I don’t want that for this car.
 
Deucenut said:
Ok thanks fellas…so by “adjusting correctly” the lower eccentrics, do you mean give them more or less drag? And thanks again, this is my first car with early ford brakes…my others have had discs in the front and I don’t want that for this car.
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i recently had the hydraulic rear brake shoes off of my '41 and had to readjust them after re-assembly, and to be honest the lower adjustment were a real PITA and i didn't notice much difference one way or the other. i simply set the lower so as to permit the drum to turn. it was a hassle dealing with the adjustment mechanism and eventually i had had enough and so did most of the adjusting using the upper eccentric adjusters.

if you never hear from me again, assume this is bad advice. :)
 
The excentics are able to spin 360˚ round and round. Spin until the tightest spot is located on each adjuster. Make adjustments to the top adjuster before and after the bottoms. As your shoes are not at the moment arced to the drums, you'll need to adjust a couple times, perhaps a week of daily driving, adjust, then another week and adjust. Don't overwork the brakes during this driving period, it'll happen quick enough.
 
There is a procedure from Ford on how to adjust the early brakes. Probably in a Motor's Manual covering those years. I know I used it when I had a car with those brakes. I'm sure a shop manual will have the procedure.
 
Lockheed brake adjustment

583979
 

Attachments

This is why Ford used Bendix brakes on the Lincoln cars. They can easily be updated for automatic adjusters. The old Lockheed brakes need to be periodically adjusted but Ford was slow to change in that respect.
 
Deucenut said:
This is great info and how-to. Thanks very much. But I’ve never heard of a brake pedal jack…is that something absolutely necessary for the job?
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Good, glad it is helping. The jack is just to keep a reasonable load, i.e., pressure in the system. There's no magic with the 25 lbs. mentioned either. The "jack| also firms up the hydraulics, bleeding out the last of the bubbles.

I use a 2 X 4 and some other bits. This is the link to my patent pending design "-)

https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2303948&postcount=26
 
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