So I took the Barracuda out for a longer drive yesterday, with the intention to push it along a bit and see what cropped up. So I had my usual wheel rotation speed related chirping sound after the brakes had warmed up, then after a down hill in traffic having to sit on and off the brakes, the pedal started to feel a little different, then I goy a bit of a bog down away from the lights and finally after a faster long hill descent with braking and thankfully less than a quarter mile from home, brake pedal all the way to the floor time and not a lot at the end of it either! Luckily there was no traffic so I could drift down to walking pace and into my driveway. The left rear wheel was mildly warm, but right rear wheel was too hot to touch, the temp gauge didn’t show much but the rad cap was fizzing away with a few drops out of the overflow and the engine bay was like a pizza oven.
Anyway I lifted the back today, with the emergency brake off the hubs couldn’t be turned by hand and the right rear drum couldn’t be pulled off so obviously the emergency brake was binding, so I loosened off the brake clip and got the drum off. The self adjuster lever had been bent inwards and was disengaged from the star wheel and the front shoe was at about 2/3 thickness of the back. The other thing I found was a nasty dent in the inner rim of the drum which I think was the cause of the chirping sound as it rubbed on the flange of the brake housing. There is also quite a deep groove worn into the drum near the outside of the braking surface, it looks like this corresponds with the position of the adjuster arm where it had been pushed off the star wheel.
I’ve re engaged the adjusting arm with the star wheel and backed it off a fraction for now. I also filed down the dink where it projected into the gap between the inner and outer rims of the drum. And for the moment the parking brake clip is backed off as well. I think for safety sake at this point discretion is the better part of valour and I’m going to take it nice and slow to the Classic car shop at the end of the village he mainly restores Jaguar E types, but he owned a Corvette mk2 and a 57 Chevy step side pickup. I think I’m going to get him to do a full overhaul on the brakes, new pad and shoes etc.
For what it’s worth and I’d like to know what people think, I reckon the right hand rear drum being messed up meant it was taking all the rear brake load, putting the system out of balance, couple with brake booster being connected to the PCV vacuum on the carb I think caused the loss of braking power and also was maybe leaning out the motor causing it to over heat?
GROOVE
DINK
BENT ADJUSTER ARM
Anyway I lifted the back today, with the emergency brake off the hubs couldn’t be turned by hand and the right rear drum couldn’t be pulled off so obviously the emergency brake was binding, so I loosened off the brake clip and got the drum off. The self adjuster lever had been bent inwards and was disengaged from the star wheel and the front shoe was at about 2/3 thickness of the back. The other thing I found was a nasty dent in the inner rim of the drum which I think was the cause of the chirping sound as it rubbed on the flange of the brake housing. There is also quite a deep groove worn into the drum near the outside of the braking surface, it looks like this corresponds with the position of the adjuster arm where it had been pushed off the star wheel.
I’ve re engaged the adjusting arm with the star wheel and backed it off a fraction for now. I also filed down the dink where it projected into the gap between the inner and outer rims of the drum. And for the moment the parking brake clip is backed off as well. I think for safety sake at this point discretion is the better part of valour and I’m going to take it nice and slow to the Classic car shop at the end of the village he mainly restores Jaguar E types, but he owned a Corvette mk2 and a 57 Chevy step side pickup. I think I’m going to get him to do a full overhaul on the brakes, new pad and shoes etc.
For what it’s worth and I’d like to know what people think, I reckon the right hand rear drum being messed up meant it was taking all the rear brake load, putting the system out of balance, couple with brake booster being connected to the PCV vacuum on the carb I think caused the loss of braking power and also was maybe leaning out the motor causing it to over heat?
