'60 Ford F250, 8-lug Dana 60 Non-Posi. The right rear wheel locks up when the brakes are applied. It feels as if the brakes on that wheel are just grabbing before the others. Once off the pedal, the breaks immediately free up. So far today I pulled off the drum on the one wheel because the adjuster was frozen. I freed up the adjuster and put everything back together, adjusted that wheel only. Road test, no change. I then checked the adjustment on the left rear wheel, seemed ok. Both sides grab just about equally in the air. However the right rear seems to be a little stiff after the brakes are applied. I backed the right rear wheel off completely. Road test, brakes feel a little softer but still no change. I then jack the front up check the adjustment, seems ok. Both grab equally left to right in the air. Next I bled all four the correct way, didnt get air out of any. Master is full. Road test, no change. Back truck into garage, close door, walk away from problem for the time being. The shoes look relined, the drums look cut, the bleeders broke loose easily leading me to be believe the wheel cylinders are newer, no hardware is broken. Lines from the T on the rear to each cylinder are newer. My line of thinking right now is that the wheel cylinder is hanging up on the right rear. Anyone else care to give their 2 cents? I'm all ears.
my thinking is that the left rear wheel cylinder may be seized or the distibution block ball is stuck on one side
If the left rear is seized or the dist bal is stuck, then yes it would cause the right rear to lock up like it is, but then the left rear wouldnt brake at all or be completely locked no?
well you get a certain amout of pressure from the master when you brake,if the left rear takes say 20% and stops, and the right rear gets 80% that wheel will lock up first.It depends a lot on your master cylinder set up also.There are a lot of possibilities on what the problem may be
I had a similar problem once. The cause turned out to be a re-lined shoe that was slightly out of round. Drove me nuts because I'd gone through the brake system from the MC down. I finally noticed an unusual wear pattern on the bad shoe. It was just out-of-round enough that you couldn't tell by looking at it, except after the weird wear pattern showed up. The "high" part on the shoe was causing it to grab a lot harder and sooner than the others. Just something else to check.
If your sure it's put together correctly the thing I remember do'ing next is: With all 4 drum adjusters equally one or two clicks sloppy take it to the parking lot, go 15 or 20 in reverse, and skid it to a halt, again and again, and again.
The shoes were relined ill take a look at how they are wearing. Anyone think the wheel cylinder could be hanging up?? Causing the brakes not to back off all the way on that wheel.
I had it happen to a left rear drum. It was the parking brake return spring got streched out and would grab.
I had that happen on one rear brake on my truck with a 10 bolt and it turned out to be gear oil leaking past the axle seal onto the drum and shoes making the shoes grab and lock the drum. Found this out at about 80 mph on the I-15 (Might be what happened to that woman who flipped the T bucket last year too?)
could be that you got some brake fluid on your shoes, does it look like your wheel cylinder has leaked at all, doesnt take much.
The wheel cylinder looks dry, they actually look farely new. The wheel seals look good too, however that doesnt rule out the possibility. Just to be sure ill shoot some brake clean on em as well as the drum and scrub em. Keep em comin I'm gonna mess w/ it saturday and I want as many scenarios as possible to check out.
You might have weak return springs on the side that locks up,a 65 galaxie I had years ago did that and I replaced the springs and the problem went away. Jeff
could be a bad linning. I have had it where new looking shoes had gone bad and that whell would lock up at any ajustment they where set at
Slag I think this is the first time you've replied to one of my posts and actaully helped me, not just told me to junk that damn car. Kinda funny, anyway right now I'm thinking about just puttin shoes, wheel cylinders and hardware on both rear wheels. It would nip whatever problem I have in the bud seeing as I can't really pinpoint it. The obvious, hasn't seemed to do it yet so I guess I'll go on to more drastic measures. That is of course unless anyone knows of any ways to spot a shoe thats out of round, or bad, or has been leaked on???
Dumb question, Are the shoes on properly? I worked in a brake shop and a few times I had costomers come in and complain the same as you, found that someone had put the shoes on backwards. If you look at the shoes, depending on make, you may see that one lining is longer than the other even though they have the same metal frame. One of the shoes is the primary while the other is secondary. The primary, most times is the front shoe, depending on make and design sees most of the stopping power. I have had purchased new shoes and open the box to find four primaries, or even four secondaries. I would suggest doing a little research on OEM specs of drums, shoes, and buy from reputable dealers. Another thing to check is line length and diameters from distribution block. Different line diameters will deliver diferent line pressures. Some will debate that different line lengths can lead to different application times. Good luck, Brake problems ****!!!!
Well the block is on the left side (if you are behind the rear) of the rear. Making it furthest from the right rear as compared to the left rear. Both line ODs are the same. With the back half in the air both sides grab together. I didn't think of the primary and secondary shoe switchup, but very possible. I will check that out tomorrow. I was aimed more towards mechanical error than mechanics error, I just got this truck last week and this is the first I've touched it.
bttt before I dive in head first. I was thinking of switching both shoes with the left rear then road testing. If no change, switch the drum with the left rear. If still no change deem it the wheel cylinder. Make any sense?
The length of a brake line has no effect on pressure. The total amount of fluid moved can be measured in grams. Brake lines are almost never the same length.
Well didn't get as far into it as I had hoped. However, after pulling the drums on both sides it became clear to me that I was missing the brake equalizer bar on the right rear. (Out of site, out of mind.) Called the local parts store and can get one on monday or tuesday hopefully. Still not sure this is the entire problem, but I didn't want to continue with my troubleshooting with this variable up in the air.
Finally got it nipped. Ended up having to make both brake bars, still not the problem. So I went back to my drawing board with the troubleshooting. All of the obvious had been elminated so I called in Chris (Unionvillehaunt) for a wheel cylinder hone and a fresh set of eyes. We played with both sides for hours, checking the operation of the shoes w/ the drum off. It appeared that the side in question wasn't retracting all the way and only the secondary shoe was expanding. With the wheel cylinder rebuilt we could elimnate that. PROBLEM BEING: The parking brake arm had been replaced at some point, came with a bendix number. The othedr side had not. I had noticed the arm was close to the dust shield upon taking it apart the first time but paid no mind to it. The parking brake arm was actaully hitting the dust shield not allowing the shoe to fully retract. I thank all of you for your help and hope you will all add this to your knowledge bank.
Go get some license plates now, fool. And don't drink so much beer. Haha...there are like 50 someodd cans on the kitchen counter this morning.
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