Dragging brake shoe

3

36henry

Junior Member
Did a round trip of 120 miles saturday, stopped for petrol about 30 miles from home and when I slowed down near the bowser there was a scrapping noise from my back wheel on one side. I felt the brake drum and it was hot, when I took off again I could hear it, almost like a brake shoe rubbing:confused: any way got home safely and was going to back the brake adjustment off to see if it frees it (By the way they are 40 hydraulics).

Should I pull the brake drum and check the bearing, I was thinking if the drum got hot it might have been bad for the bearing grease (they were only done recently) what do you guys think????
 
I would pull it Henry just to investigate, its unlikely that it would have affected the bearing as normal down hill braking brings the Temperature right up .
 
I have had that problem on two wheels both front and back. They were both caused by the brake shoe and brake drum not lining up right. Here's what I mean. On the rear the padding on the brake shoe stuck out on the outside of the brake shoe metal frame enough to rub on the side of the brake drum. (Poorly applied pad.) I just ground the pad down to the edge of the metal shoe frame and that fixed that one. On the front one the garage that had turned the brake drum had not turned it all the way in so that here was still an edge for the shoe to hang up on. Took the drum back to the garage to finish the job and all is well. Might check those kind of things. Backing off the brake adjustment isn't going to help that kind of problem.
 
make sure the springs are good and that the surface of the backing plate does not have a ridge or groove worn in it
 
Bruce Lancaster said:
1940 hydraulics have 2 adjustments per shoe to get both centering and gap right.
Click to expand...

Bruce,

Am aware of the two adjustment points (upper and lower) from what I've found the upper are for minor adjustments and upper and lower for major adjustments e.g. brake reline.

Is this right? Think I'll back them off to see if it stops rubbing and pop the hub, repack the bearing just to be safe.

How tight do you guys do the locknut? and is it right that it needs retightening again after driving for a while?

Thanks all for the input already received;)
 
There were a lot of replacement shoes supplied by the Ford parts suppliers that caused this type of problem. On the bottom of the shoe where the excentric hole is the original Ford shoes were machined to a thinner thickness than the rest of shoe around the large hole. The after market ones were never machine and causes the brakes to tighten up. You can adjust them and drive 5 miles and they hang up. Adjust again drive 5 miles and they hang up. I did this about 5 time before finding the problem. G.M.
 
Jack the wheel up and apply the brakes then check to see if the wheel binds. If it does then open the bleeder and check again. If it releases then you might have a bad brake hose.
 
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