Posted by Clint Dixon [172.69.17.113] on Friday, January 31, 2025 at 19:32:57 :
In Reply to: Re: Brake adjustment posted by clueless [172.70.255.53] on Friday, January 31, 2025 at 15:37:16 :
So you may have read my post here from YEARS ago about brake shoe adjustment.
Long story short, I went by the manual and adjusted the brakes with equal clearance at toe and heal with a little less at the center between the two. Then I went out on a crowned blacktop road, got up to speed and slammed on the brakes. That was a stupid move on my part.
All four wheels locked up, I lost control, and went into the ditch. No harm done except for my ego.
So ever since then I have not adjusted by the manual. I now adjust .005 inch or less at the heal and anywhere from .010 to .020 inch at the toe with the center between the two just lightly touching the drum.
The reason is, and the reason why my brakes locked up is, you want the heal to contact the drum first and the toe last. If the toe touches first, like I learned the hard way, it is like Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes) speeding down a hill in his little red wagon and throwing the tongue forward. The handle on the wagon tongue is like the toe on a brake shoe. The toe of the shoe can grab the drum real quick just like the handle on the tongue of the wagon is going to dig into the ground real quick. Result - scary things can start happening real quick.
But if you have heal contact first, the toe kind of drags and bounces along behind not unlike Cavin riding down the hill with the wagon backwards and dragging the tongue bouncing behind. Not much danger of the tongue making sudden contact with the ground and catapulting poor Calvin and his trusty tiger Hobbes into orbit.
Of course the rear shoe does not really have the same effect of the toe suddenly digging into the surface of the drum - unless you are going backwards and slamming on the brakes.
Your measurements will vary depending upon how well the shoes have been arced to fit the drums. If the shoes are arced with a radius much smaller than the drums, you will of course not get full contact of the shoes to the drums until they wear in from use. In which case, part of the shoes may wear a lot and other parts may not wear hardly at all resulting in bad brakes.
Another thing. If you adjust heal too close and the toe too far away, the heal will make contact first (as it should) but the toe may have to travel to far in order to make contact and the result will be that you will be over flexing the shoes into a flatter shape in the process. This will result in a feel in the pedal that resembles the feeling you get when air is in the brake lines.
Hope this helps. It has worked for me for the past 45 years.
Junior
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