Brake Question - Help!!

[matgood]

I'm going out to Moab tommorrow and decided to have my brake system bled and adjusted.. The guys at the brake shop told me that my front brakes can't be adjusted because there frozen. They wanted to charge me a whole lot of money and I said no way(can almost covert to disc for as much as they wanted). Now when i drive it i push down on the brake on the first time and I can tell its trying to stop, just not very well. When I pump it the second time it stops really good. I took it back to them today and told them to rebleed it. They did that and told me that there is no air in the system and its because the can't adjust my front brakes that its doing that. Just wonder if anybody has any ideas on what I can do the fix that? I don't know much about fixing cars but am willing learn. So explain it like i'm an idiot ???

 

[76FJ55]

Re: Brake Question - Help!! (rather long)

Ok your brakes work like this. You obviosly got 4 wheel drum. in each drum you have two shoes (roughly a half cirlcle each) placed together to form a single circle. between the shoes in each drum are two cylinders positioned at the piont where the shoe ends meet. in each cylinder there is a piston driven by the brake fluid. When you step on the brake it forces fluid in behind the pistons increasing the length of the cylinder therefore increasing the diameter of the circle forcing the shoes against the drum. There is an adjustment on each cylinder that can be turned to increase is length of the cylinder without adding any brake fluid this adjustment is what is seized on your brakes.
The reason you have to pump the brakes to get them to work well is this. Your cylinders start out short (out of adjustment) the first pump of the pedal lengthens them to a little longer than what should be the adjusted length. I say longer since you start to have some braking effect. But not long enough to adiquitly stop you. when you release the pedal and pe apply it rapidly the brake doesn't have time to force all the fluid back through the master cylinder and as reapply the brake the wheel cylinders are slightly extended from the first application, and now with this application the mastercylinder has enough fliud to apply good brake pressure.

you may be able to free the adjusters using a penitrating oil. You will need to pull your brake drums for better access. remember DO NOT get oil on the pads, and oil and brake fliud are NOT compatible. Oil can ruin the seal in your brake cylinders, so only get it on the seized adjuster.

Hope This Helps

 

[matgood]

Ok thanks! That really helped. I'm going to see if maybe I can get that myself. I didn't really trust the guys at the brake place. Thanks again for helping me out. I need all the help I can get

 

[CruisinGA]

I had similar symptoms and it was a combo of all but 2 slaves being bad and a bad master and a going bad booster. 8 slaves, 1 master later my brakes work like nearly new! (Still partially need a new booster) :
Hope you don't have to do what I did.