Brakes seized?

A

armchair67

Senior Member
I bought my 31 Tudor last August and have been driving it daily since. About 4500 miles give or take so far. A few weeks ago the brake pedal started sticking, where I had to pull it back up with my foot to keep the brake light from staying on. It became increasingly worse-more difficult to pull back up and finally got to the point two days ago where I had to pull out the fuse when I parked the car so the battery would not die as I could not pull the pedal back up enough to get the light to go off

Last night I disconnected all 4 brake rods and the pedal worked as it should. I reconnected the two front wheel brakes and the pedal worked as it should. With either rear brake hooked up, pedal sticks like crazy. It has also felt like stepping into molasses when depressing the pedal as well. With the rear rods disconnected , and the rear brake shoes backed off all the way , I still get a fair amount of drag and I can barely move the rods in either direction by hand.

I realize I have to pull the drums to really find out what the issue is , but wondered if anyone had some ideas so I can maybe buy some parts first. It seems odd that BOTH rear wheel brakes would have what seems to be the same issue, at or about the same time. Not sure what could be causing this. I will say that maybe two weeks before this, I did adjust all four brakes-maybe I did something. The right rear wheel is stuck enough that I cannot get the clevis part of the rod back in without major force even with it adjusted fully. Any advice is appreciated !
 
I should add that I bought this car restored, but the first few weeks I had it, I spent sorting out things that were not done as they should have been.
 
What comes to mind would be no lube on the actuating shafts at the back plate and wedge/rollers, and maybe bad return springs
 
Have you lubricated all the moving parts? This may have dry or rusted shafts for the rear brakes. When I buy used rear backing plates rusted shafts is the most common problem.

For starters, spray some Kroil on the shafts to get them freed up.
 
Lack of lubrication? Arm where brake rods attach has or should have a grease fitting. The shaft goes thru a bushing in back plate, you might try first!
 
I agree, first place to start is the easy place. See if the grease fittings work, just don't full the drums with the slippery stuff. They seem to be fittings that are ignored.
 
Thanks- I will double check to make sure I did not overlook lube joints back there. If not, I will disassemble and lube it up and install new grease fittings.
 
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