Give me a brake!

Bill G

Bill G

Well-known member
Woo Hoo! It's been over a month and now I have some decent brakes. It was bad. Befoer, I felt like Fred Flintstone like I needed to take out the floor boards and use my feet to stop. I was shifting down and coasting to each stop sign just to avoid using them. Some shoes were not even working. One had all its lining where as the opposing one on that wheel was down to the rivets. One steel brake drum had .09" thickness, where the rest were slightly under .125". The E-brake shafts were solidly frozen in their bushings. One backing plate had an entire lower section sheered off and that drum had actually had a piece welded into it. Front wheel bearings were shot. Rears, surprisingly, were OK.

I did all new cast iron drums (Thank you Randy Gross), brake linings, wheel bearings, front wedges, rear camshafts and cams, and all new springs, and all new E-brake linings and shafts/bushings.

I learned a lot. Like how to cuss at cotter pins that don't want to bend. Some things I had to do over and over again, like the orientation of the rear activating levers for both the service and e-brakes. I can not tell you how many times I have put the shoes on, springs and all, only to take them off for a re-do. All the while, I had Les Andrews handy (Thanks Les) and countless searches through this and other forums, and referred to many diagrams from a variety of vendors.

I was not sure what to expect when I was done. This is the first and only car I have ever driven with mechanical activated brakes. It has been probably 30 or 40 years since I have driven a non-power assisted drum-type brake system, although those were all hydraulic.

The improvement was vast. I admit I adjusted and checked it out many times thinking that it wasn't quite right because they felt to me "mushy".

I took it to a friend and long-time Model A guy in the club today to ask him what he thought. He was truly excited that they felt so good and performed great. We took it for a test drive and he got it up to 25 and just slammed on the brakes. The rears locked up, and the stuff on the back seat went flying.

I am very happy to have some good brakes! Yay! And thanks to all of you from years of posts that I was able to read and digest by doing searches.
 
I am glad you never ran over a kid in front of you when you knew your brakes were ****.
 
What a contented feeling to have good brakes! Mechanical brakes are perfectly safe...if properly set up.
 
Marshall V. Daut said:
Let me take a wild guess - the car was sold to you as "restored". Right?
Marshall
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Well, no.... My avatar is a pic of my car. Not exactly restored, but they guy did represent that it runs well and everything is in great shape mechanically. Sheesh!

I cannot say enough about having local Model A club members to be mentors, advisors, etc. These local guys are the best! I frequently see posts here to newbies where they are being encouraged to seek out a local club and ask others for advice and help. It is sometimes hard to reach out and seek people, but they are out there, and not hard to find. To anyone struggling and trying to do it alone.... Go out and find someone in your area who has the knowledge and experience.
 
In an ideal world, the front brakes lock up first, giving the car directional stability. I'm sure you found that when the rear ones locked, the rear of the car went sideways. To get more bias towards the front, I have heard of all sorts of things being done - some "out of the box thinking". Cast iron drums on the front, woven or VERY soft linings, even using the longer rear actuating arms from the rear on the front to get more leverage, for example.
 
Henry's first foray into 4 wheel brakes was the model A.

Have to give him and his engineers credit at the time.

No one back in 1928 thought that brakes should be 70/30 front bias.
 
Synchro909 said:
In an ideal world, the front brakes lock up first, giving the car directional stability. I'm sure you found that when the rear ones locked, the rear of the car went sideways. To get more bias towards the front, I have heard of all sorts of things being done - some "out of the box thinking". Cast iron drums on the front, woven or VERY soft linings, even using the longer rear actuating arms from the rear on the front to get more leverage, for example.
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I have read many discussion on this board about the bias towards the front and back. Henry definitely had them biased to the back, both in the length of the activating arms and in the procedure of adjusting the brakes to be firm but not locked, when the fronts are just starting to hold, and then the rears are locked when the fronts are very firm but not locked.

Yes, when the rears locked, I did get a little fishtail from the rear, although very brief because I was on solid and dry pavement and only doing about 25MPH. Had I been going faster and/or on wet pavement, I could have been spinning "like a top" as so many have reported in the past. I guess there is a built-in instinct to steer into the fish-tail to correct the problem. We get a fair amount of ice and snow here, so I am sure I did that little defensive maneuver when the fish-tail happened which may have lessened its effect.

I do have new cast iron drums all the way around and I do have woven linings. I must confess that after I adjusted according to the book, I cheated a bit and put a little "extra" tightening into the fronts to give it a bit more. It is still biased to the backs doing more braking than the fronts.

So, the dilemma. Which is the lesser of two evils? Locking the fronts and not being able to steer, or locking the backs and fish-tailing out of control? I guess that's why they invented ABS brakes.

I have seen passionate and convincing arguments for both sides of the topic, and to be honest, I don't know which to use. I guess in a way, that is why I went with the "book" on rear bias and then fudged a couple notches of extra in the fronts.
 
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Brakes, spend the money and get great brakes no floaters needed.

Unless you have the tools to do them right brakes are best left to those who do. It is nice to hear a success story.

So what did it cost to do this?
 
Kevin in NJ said:
Brakes, spend the money and get great brakes no floaters needed.

Unless you have the tools to do them right brakes are best left to those who do. It is nice to hear a success story.

So what did it cost to do this?
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All-in, I think about $1,200 to $1,300 for parts and including the cost of swedging the drums and arching the shoes to each drum. I (and a couple club members) did the rest of the work.
 
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I am about to replace all the shoes on the Model A in my care. I hope I will have the same elation after the fact (without the current "pucker factor" I now have when stopping).
 
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