With old cars is all about perseverance. If you ask enough questions you will get put in the right direction.  Always look for the oldest guy in the shop to talk to.

Gary Ryan San Antonio.TX.

Nate,

As you are re-doing your brakes I'd be replacing bearings and seals as a matter of course. (unless you are on a really tight budget). You shouldn't have to be back in there for a while. Bearings are not that expensive.

Just a thought do you know how to adjust front wheel bearings??

Cheers

Warren

Grizzly (Aussie Mainline)

After reading these comments I can now see why I buy many parts from folks like Dennis Carpenter and Concours Parts. When you order a set of plug wires or brakes shoes from them for a 56 Vicky...that's what you get. Many of the local parts places don't have a clue. I get tired of the "We can get it but it'll come out of the warehouse in KC." Yeah you gotta pay shipping but it's worth it to me.

Wichita,KS

Awesome! Thanks John!  Those are the tips that make my day!

Nate - Madison, Wisconsin

 

56 Ford Customline Sedan

 

Yeah, I suppose you're right Warren I'll pick up new bearings/seals.  I read about tightenening the castle nut in my repair manual, but I've never done it, it was darn loose when I took the drum off, not even finger tight.  Is there any tricks?

Nate - Madison, Wisconsin

 

56 Ford Customline Sedan

 

Nate,

Over tight wheel bearings can cause the problem of drag that you initially described. There are a dozen different methods of adjusting front wheel bearings. All are a little hard to understand because it's a "by feel" thing.

Firstly the nut should be loose. A VW beetle that my ex owned called for a mic and an adjustment of 1 thou play at the edge of the disk. Which gives an indication of how they should be set. Grease and put your assembly together and hand tighten the nut until you cannot feel any play in the bearing by wiggling the hub drum. There should be about one notch (in the castlated nut) between noticeable play and none.  This is where you want it, loose then one notch to remove play. Put your wheel on and while it still off the ground give the wheel a wriggle as you've probably seen mechanics do and give it a spin. Be sure your feeling just the play in the bearing checking what is moving. There should be little to no play and just the slightest rolling resistance by hand. In use the bearing will expand with heat (friction) and give you your loading.  Too tight and you'll damage the bearing too loose and you'll damage the bearing.  Don't be afraid to do it several times to get the feel.    

When you are happy put you split pin in and the cap back on.

Cheers

Warren

Grizzly (Aussie Mainline)

Well,  I had my drums turned at that solved the drag issue.  So I now have a fairly new brake system, 68 bronco MC, new hoses up front, new front wheels cylinders, new pads.  All new lines up front, I have a new line coming off the MC and I joined it to some of the existing rear line.  I haven't done anything to the back brakes, I plan to, but time and budget didn't allow me to do them this weekend.  There weren't any leaks or problems out back so I thought I could probably at least drive around the block again with now that I have a new dual master, and all new front brakes.

So I went to bleed my new brake system, and I can't get a firm pedal.  I followed the instructions for bleeding the master, and had a rock hard pedal with the master and the bleeding plugs.  But then when I hooked up my lines and bled all four wheel cylinders, I ended up with a very soft pedal.

I had good fluid flow at each wheel cylinder, I bled it until I had no bubbles.  I don'tk now what the deal is.  I do have a small drip leak where the new rear line coming off the MC joins the existing line, but it doesn't seem that small leak should be accounting for my pedal being able to go down to the floor with all the bleeder valves closed??

Especially with a dual MC you'd think of the front brake circuit was tight and leak free, that I'd at least get pedal resistance from the fronts?

Any ideas?  Would a leak in the rear brake circuit account for the soft pedal?  I was wondering maybe the way the Master Cylinder is built, the first circuit to be pressurized during pedal travel is the rear cirucuit, and since there is a leak in the rear that is why I have so much pdeal travel.  And that I wouldn't feel the front pressure until I had almost gotten to the end of the pedal stroke, any truth to that theory?

I have the MC hooked up correctly, rear circuit to the front port etc. and I put a washer in the push rod opening to take up that extra slack from the 68 MC.

Nate - Madison, Wisconsin

 

56 Ford Customline Sedan

 

Chuck you,re 100 percent right with p/rod cup size problem. best regards bill.

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

Nate:

You did adjust the brakes after turning the drums, didn't you?

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Yeah, I did, whether or not I did it good enough, I don't know.  I was wondering so I went ahead and adjusted the front ones so that I couldn't move the wheel by hand just to see if changed the pedal feel.  I did seem to give me a little firmer pedal but only way down at the end of the pedal travel.  And that was with the front brakes adjusted so tight I couldn't rotate the drum by hand.

The shop did not offer shoe "re-curving" so the shoes were not machined in any way to match the drum, but he said my drums were in good shape, he didn't have to do much but "clean 'em up", he said there was lots of metal left on the drums so I don't think they've been turned much, so I wouldn't think the drum would be much different in curvature than new pads?

Nate - Madison, Wisconsin

 

56 Ford Customline Sedan