Help...Drivers side rear brake locks up (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Aug 14, 2018
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Messages
6
Location
Roseburg, Oregon
Hi Guys,

New to FJ40’s, I have a 1964 pretty much original. The drivers side rear drum locks up (break pads are totally loose) when the wheel is tightened up. With the wheel and drum off, the axle moves smoothly. I put the drum on it moves smoothly, when I tighten the lugs up to the drum is locks up again. I know it is hitting something but do not know what or where to even start.

Thanks for any help you can give,

Mark
 
Tell us more please. Is this a brand-new occurrence? What have you done to it lately?
First WAG, the outside edge of the shoe(s) is sticking out too far. Just for fun, take off the shoes and bolt the drum and wheel on, see if the wheel spins. Also, compare the width of those shoes with your other shoes...
Also, Welcome to MUD. :flipoff2:
 
Hi and thanks, I removed the shoes as you suggested, installed the drum, tightened it up and the wheel spins like it should.
A little back ground...I bought this 40 (drivable) and after reading a lot on here, I decided to inspect the brakes (since I have kids and want it to stop). I removed the wheels and all of the drums. The shoes, cylinders and drums all look new (PO replaced). I re-installed the drums and adjusted as recommended from a post on here. When I installed the wheels and tightened them down, this is what I ended up with and it is only on the drivers side rear.
The springs are both behind the shoes (as they are on all). To me it appears the lower shoe is hitting the dust cover but I don’t understand why.
 
The brakes should be adjusted with the wheels in place. It's possible that if you adjusted them with the wheels off the pads are just too tight and need to be backed off some.
 
Hi Byron,

Thanks for your reply. I shoes were completely loose when this was happening. It seems that the shoes maybe to wide?? Or another problem.
 
I'm not real familiar with the '64 drum setup, and it's been a long time since I've even had drum brakes. Are the tabs on the '64 shoes centered in the shoes? And you have 2 tabs on each shoe, one goes in the adjuster, one in the slave. Do you have them oriented correctly? Compare the width of the shoes that bind with the shoes that don't bind. Maybe swap the rear shoes side to side, see what happens.
IIRC, one of the springs went behind the shoes, one went in front. I could be wrong here and not sure what difference that would make.
 
Thank you all for your help. I looked at SOR websites and found that the PO had put the shoes on backwards jamming the fat end into the cylinder and making the shoes not stable. Once this was corrected all was good, now just need to adjust this wheel.
 
I had a 'brake drum jams when you tighten the lug nuts' problem on my '78, and it was due to the paper gasket missing on the end of the axle flange. This allowed the drum to touch (and lock to) the backing plate when I tightened the lug nuts. YMMV, but this is how it panned out for me. Fortunately, the paper gaskets are cheap and still available.
 

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