I have a 59 Ford wagon I rebuilt all the brakes with new brake shoes, rebuilt the cylinders, and I have good pedal, but it takes 2 feet to push the pedal and the car still does not stop . I hope I’m explaining myself correctly. I did not resurface the brake drums. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you merry Christmas to all
Had that happen once, turned out that all of the rubber brake hoses swelled and would not any or very little fluid through. Having the drums turned might just give the new shoes a surface to grab as well
Is the bore of the new master cylinder the same as the original one? If you got a larger bore than stock, it would take more pedal pressure to stop the car.
if it was my car id pull the drums and check to see how much contact the shoes are making on the drums. you may need to turn the drums and then have the shoes arched to match
Several places to look...... 1. Backing Plates.... This is often ignored. The backing plates are as critical as any other component. The brake shoes slide on pads formed into the backing plate. This is supposed to be greased regularly. Most often this was not done. Over time the shoes will wear a groove in the backing plate pads. The new shoes will not slide and the brake shoes stick in these grooves. Solution ..... Sometimes the pads can be ground or filed smooth so the shoes can slide on the backing plate. On backing plates that are severely damaged, the grooves need to be welded and the weld filed, restoring the backing plate. Out of adjustment...... Each wheel will need to be adjusted. The shop manual has the procedure. Properly adjusted brakes raise the pedal. Sometimes the adjuster is bad or locked up. It may click but it could be the tool slipping off the teeth instead of turning the star. Another thing about adjusting braked, it may take several adjustments to work the new shoes in. Bad rubber lines...... Bad rubber lines will not work. They can fail brand new. On a new hose.... blow through it both ways. System not bled properly...... Shop manual Bad or faulty master....... Sometimes a single pot master can be rebuilt in the car, especially an under the floor master.... Bad hard lines..... Rust blockage in hard lines..... Solution Replace hard lines
Try raise all 4 wheels off the ground and have someone apply the brake. Then try to spin each wheel,will let you know what's working or what isn't. do the wheel cylinders move ?
If you rebuilt the brakes, you made sure the bottom adjuster links/star wheels were loose and operational. Then after you reassembled you adjusted them out again? As Dingus Greg said, the shoes are probably not arched the same as the drums and will either need to wear in for a couple thousand miles with many adjustments, or you get them arched to each individual drum.
So the last old car I redid ALL of the brake systems at the same time was my 64 C10. New shoes, drums, wheel cylinders, master, even E brake stuff.. Well, it stopped terribly at first. I did the usual break in procedure a few times. It was just barely good enough to drive. After some miles & several stops everything finally "broke in" & started stopping as it should. Just my experience. You may benefit running through the break in stops a few more times.
Could this be a simple case of, "Ya it didn't work when I bought it for Cheep, so I took it all apart and installed all new parts just like it was before, and it still don't work"!! I hear this kind of thing a lot anymore and it simply gets down to the "Dooer" is in over their qualifications and don't know it. I've been on this board over 20 years and Brake issues are by far the #1 most often asked about problem. This simply gets down to the person handling the job is not qualified to be doing it. On top of that they don't bother to use the search menu.
Brake shoes are not all the same. There are Primary and Secondary shoes. Different compounds, plus one is longer than the other. The primary shoe is a softer, more grippy material, which helps "energize" the Secondary shoes. If you put them on reversed, they don't work nearly as well.
And all of this helpful information has been covered time and time again right here and accessible with the touch of the mouse.
I have a couple questions for Imallia. You say and I quote, " I rebuilt all the brakes with new brake shoes, rebuilt the cylinders" yet you mention nothing about the Master Cyl. and you rebuilt the Cylinders. Why did you do the cyl's? were they leaking? Did you rebuild the Master also? Then you go on to say and I quote, "I did not resurface the brake drums. Were the shoes in such good condition that your drum surface was as good as fresh cut would be? Why then did you replace all the shoes? Beggs the Question what was wrong with Brakes to start with that made you do so much yet not enough to cure whatever was wrong to start with?
Very Hard Pedal....... Something is stuck. Cars with rusted solid wheel cylinders have a hard pedal. Jammed or stuck brake shoes will have a hard pedal....see my backing plate info. Clogged hoses or lines. Faulty master cylinder.
Definitely toss the master if it is old, also the hoses. Does the oedal return on its own? Turning the drums will help a lot. Arcing shoes, this has been outlawed in many areas going on 50 years. Truck shops and specialty shops may have the equipment. I have beveled the shoe leading and trailing edges with a wood rasp to help the break in process. If all the planets line up, you should have a god stopping Ford
I don't any thing about brakes but..... make sure the peddal is letting the master come all the way to the top... if the rod is too long... it won't let the master fill and the pedal bottoms out before it pushes enough fluid.... I just had the same problem with my vicky.. but turns out the pedal was hitting the cross member, and not letting the pedal push the master all the way in...you could stand both feet on the peddal.... no brakes..
O.P. made no mention of bleeding the brakes after all his initial work. Is the brake fluid even getting to the wheel cylinders?
ALLDONE; 59 Ford brake pedal is nowhere close to any crossmember or anything else to stop it from full swing, only the floorboards if it gets there.
bobss396, being you own a 59 Ford you should know that in stock form and working correctly the Brake Pedal will always return on its own weather the piston in the master follows and returns or not. It has a specific coil spring on the pedal at the pivot shaft to do that job.
Sounds like one of my typical Monday mornings When I worked at the Firestone store in down town Waco in the early 70's "Me and my buddy did the brakes on my car on Saturday, now they don't work right can you fix it?". The guys gave some pretty damned solid ideas on this one for a change with no BS going on. First, You did put the primary = short shoe or the one with the least lining surface in front and the secondary shoe (most lining surface) in the rear. Primary/ secondary = little/bigger just like the throttle plates on a 4 barrel with the littles in the front and the bigs in the back. All springs put on correctly? Brakes adjusted correctly ? ON that one you tighten the adjuster until you cannot turn the tire by hand and back it off ELEVEN clicks. it will and is supposed to have some drag as that is how drum brakes work correctly. This is what I was taught in 1962, this is how I have done it adjusting thousands of sets of brakes over the past 62 years and it works. I'd agree with replacing the old hoses just as a personal safety thing along with the concept that they may be compromised. That is something we tend to not do often enough simply because they aren't leaking and the covering doesn't look that bad. Now, did you drive the car before and did the brakes work better before? Or perhaps have you never driven it before and this is the first drive and your daily has 4 wheel disk brakes or at least disk front and drum rear and you have never once in your life driven a 4 wheel drum brake car and this is your first experience with one. Very honestly if you started driving after around 1980 that is totally possible that you have never before driven a 4 wheel drum brake car and expect that old tank to stop like your new rig. When I climb out of my BMW into My old rig my brain has to recalibrate braking distances and space needed to safely stop. Simply meaning that if nothing is wrong it may not stop like what you are used to and comparing it to but I am placing my bets on either shoes not being on right and from the sounds of it brakes not being adjusted right or not adjusted at all.
The last old Ford I had before the '59 was my '64 Country Sedan with stock single master drum brakes. It stopped great, I would even say by today's standards as well. Likely the drums are glazed and need a cut. It was mentioned to look for the shoes hanging up on the backing plate. Lastly the shoes have to conform to the drums, without arcing this takes time. On my '59 the rear drums were never cut before I did. So the shoes broke in quickly. In the case of the front drums being potentially at the size limit, the break-in will take longer. I have always beveled the edges like I said in another post. Another key aspect is a proper adjustment to get an optimal pedal. I'd like to see the OP keep the drums up front. Switching to front discs is always an option but takes time, money and expertise.
So far O.P. hasn't been back since his opening post. In that nothing was mentioned about going Disc Brakes. Without being able to make a simple 4 wheel drum system work properly let's hope O.P. doesn't dive into that job. To date everything here is good "maybe" info but just guess work advice. Without knowing what O.P. was trying to correct O.P. is just chasing his tail. According to my Dad who kinda knew his shit there are real Mechanics and then there are Parts Changers. There are signs of rubber hosses collapsing and ways to test that long before you step up to the parts counter. A bad or failing Master Cyl has its specific symptoms also. New shoes and not doing a clean-up cut, really? This is a sad display of let me try and O-Damn it still doesn't work. All the above posts are just adding to that. You can't fix anything if you don't know what's wrong! And there's the reason I haven't jumped in with advice.
The Jalopy Journal
