Car is Stopping Dead.. Locking Up...Help

Well it may be fixed. I looked in the rear through the fill hole as suggested. Looked OK. I put the car on jack stands and removed the right rear drum. The emergency brake looks to have shifted and was not aligned properly. I may have done that when pulling the drum, but running the car on the jack stands it ran and shifted fine. I put things back together and just drove it 15 miles FORWARD. Seems OK. Backed up, stopped, applied emergency brake on a hill-both forward and backwards, released.

I think the emergency brake assembly was jamming in the drum. Not sure why it did that. Everything was new 820 miles ago. It's been flawless for those 820 miles. Seems fine now. My son stopped by and he thinks maybe the axle nut wasn't tight enough and during the reinstall we tightened it correctly. Could a differential problem simply hide like this?

On another note it's nice getting older. The kids are grown and out of the house. So I said to the wife, "Look I know it's Christmas, but I'd really like to look at this problem for a couple of hours and then we'll go for a walk and go see the grand kids etc." She was fine with that. Getting a little older has some advantages.
 
Keep in mind that the "emergency brake" is actually a parking brake and can be damaged if applied while the car is moving.
 
I saw a couple pictures on the internet where people hooked the parking brake band springs into the holes next to the carrier plate instead of the outer holes. If those two springs are hooked in the inside holes they can catch on the carrier plate. Here's a picture of them in the correct holes.

Also, there is an inside and outside for mounting the band. Where the toggles are pinned to the band the mounting tab has an offset to ride against the carrier.
 

Attachments

  • Parking Brake Mounting.jpg
    Parking Brake Mounting.jpg
    90.2 KB · Views: 133
I agree with Posts # 8 & 9 (Tom and George). I had the same things happen to my 1930 Roadster and it was from the parking brake hanging up
 
Hawk, Look at the photo that Tom posted, dose your carrier plate have the tabs that hold the brake bands? In the photo they are located at 5, 7, & 8 o'clock in the photo. You might have an early plate that dose not have the tabs, and that is how the brake moved and hung up.
 
They are one of the many small improvements made during the Model A years, but your band should do fine without them. as long as the parts are installed and adjusted correctly.
 
I will bet it is the parking brake! I bought a sedan recently that had been worked on 20 years ago then sat. I winched it up on the trailer but when I went to roll it off when I got home it seamed like the trans was locked up? I jacked up the rear end and found it to spin freely going forward but only a quarter turn in reverse. Someone had incorrectly installed new studs in the drum and they were hanging up on the emergency brake only while it moved backward. I corrected that and now its fine!
 
PROBLEM SOLVED: It was the emergency (parking) brake band had slipped over the carrier. How do I know? I have driven the car over twenty miles, and I removed the drum twice to see if removing the drum would replicate moving the band off the carrier as I originally observed, and it did not. Now the question WHY? I admit I may have not torqued the drum on the tapered axle to the full 90 lbs. I also may have at one point left the emergency (parking) brake on and pulled against it in one gear or another (forward or reverse). I had the brakes sent out to Bratton's so I know the inside/outside that Tom mentioned was correct. I really can't say for sure. The way I see the set up it is an excellent way to lock the wheels ONCE and then bad things may happen (without the new and improved tabs). If I did pull against it, I essentially simulated an emergency stop and moved the band against the carrier and it slipped. I don't know. I'm thankful to you guys for the help, and I hope the problem is resolved.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top