My brakes have been, well, substandard for a while. Capable of producing drag
when the pedal is on the floorboard, and filling the air with the aroma of
burning brake lining. Needless to say, I wasn't driving it much in that shape.
So this weekend I worked on it, and thought I'd post the findings to the
group. Richard, I suspect some of this applies to Daffy, and may help you out
some.
All the work I did was on the mechanicals. The hydraulic side of the equation
was left alone, and assumed to be in decent working order. New master cylinder
and rear cylinders were already installed, and the front calipers were rebuilt
a year ago (maybe three actually).
Out back I found several problems. The adjusting piston (the part that rides
against the tapered adjusting screw) was frozen on the leading shoe, drivers
side. The wheel cylinders were also bound pretty tightly against the backing
plate. I took everything off, cleaned them up and lubricated it all with
synthetic brake grease (neat stuff btw). *Big* difference on how things
worked. Now I could center the rear brakes and adjust them well. Adjust until
they drag, go stomp the brake pedal a few times, repeat until the brakes are
overtight, back off a turn or two. Oh lala!
Up front, I had to hammer the pads out. That's never a good sign, so off comes
the caliper. Wire brush the faces that the pads ride against, and admire the
damage. Between rust and decades of fretting, there were some pretty deep
groves that the brake pad's metal backing plate can, and did, fall into,
binding the brakes. So, with the handy dandy file I dressed the surfaces. I
filed down the high spots to match the worn low spots, and left the rust pits
there. I also dressed the edges of the new brake pad backing plates. They
were punch cut, and had a raised edge that would have cut into the caliper a
bit, and been prone to binding. Smoothed them out, and rounded the edges.
Again with the synthetic brake grease. Now those pads move around freely!
Test drive time. Oh yea! Now the car stops. Truthfully, the brakes still
suck. But they are a whole lot better then they were that morning. The pedal
only travels a few inches total, the car stops and can lock its brakes, it
doesn't stink, and it isn't scary. The reason I say the brakes still suck is
because it's very clear my flexible lines need to be replaced now (I can
distinctly feel them), my rotors are all pitted from rust, I'm using lucas
front pads (yuck) and probably raybestos rear shoes (double yuck). With new
flex lines, turned or replaced front rotors, and something like Ferodo pads and
shoes, I think the brakes would then be delightfull.
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