After replacing the emergency brake cable, my brake pedal had more travel
than I would prefer. It was fairly consistent and solid, so I suspected
rear brake adjustment.
In the book, it says to adjust the rear brake until the bind then back off
one notch. At this point the brake should spin freely with no shoe/drum
contact. I followed the instructions and found considerable drag at this
point. It became obvious that my rear drums were not longer as round or as
true as they had been (giving MOWOG the benefit of the doubt). I kept
backing them off until no drag was heard but this left considerable travel
in the pedal although it was better than before.
I sat on my old milk crate and pondered the situation. The MGA uses a
one-sided slave cylinder that relies on sliding movement in the backing
plate to release the second brake shoe. I reached around the back of the
brakes and shook the slave cylinder. Sure enough, it had considerable
movement showing that there was a lot of clearance between the shoes and
the drum.
Try again. Tighten the brakes and back off on notch. Shake the slave
cylinder to center the shoes. Still some binding. Back off one more
notch, shake the brakes, and presto! No binding and a nice firm pedal.
I put another 100 miles on this weekend. Here last week I wrote about how
stiff the A's chassis was compared to other cars. Well, last night I was
out and went into a 20 mph corner at 40-45 and hit some washboard frost
damage. The steering wheel and cowl started shaking like a bowl of Jello
and I started understeering into the outside lane which was, unfortunately,
occupied at the time. Luckily, a little more steering lock and backing off
the throttle slightly brought the car back in line. My daughter was
riding with me and, other than some tire squeal, she was unaware of the
situation. The bumps must have been just the right frequency to set the
chassis off. I do have a leaking RF shock so that may have attributed to
the situation. I guess that just shows that even a good 50's design still
has its weaknesses although recovery was easy and the car remained
communicative and predictable- Safety Fast! At least the four of us
(Lindsay, the A, myself and my shorts) survived unscathed.
Other than that, it was a great weekend. 350 miles since the bearings last
weekend and the only maintenance required has been cleaning the bugs off
the windscreen!
Regards,
Bill Eastman
61 MGA
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