DING DING DING!!!
We have a winner! I crawled around the car today and cranked up the
brake adjusters. The brakes came back to their former glory! And
yes, the e-brake cable was shortened at the handle...By me, when I
installed it in the car. I forget the reason, but somehow I needed
it shorter to get something taken care of in the car. Either way,
I've got to try to wedge myself under the car enough to loosen the
cable up so I can re-attach it to the brakes...Or maybe I'll just
wait till I get home and use a block as an e-brake...
Thanks Barney!
Michael S. Lishego
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/3706/
>I will take an educated guess.
>
>At some point in the past life of this car, at a time when the rear
brake
>shoes were partly worn, the DPO affected a brake adjustment by
shortening
>the hand brake cable rather than by using the normal brake adjuster
screws
>at the rear wheels. The hand brake cable would then be holding the
shoes
>in a partially activated position and not allowing them to return
all the
>way back to the rest stops.
>
>Now while you're driving one of the cable attachment points breaks,
>relieving the preload and the quasi-adjustment in the cables, and
allowing
>the brake shoes to return to the proper rest stops. This
immediately gives
>the shoes more travel from the rest position to the point of
contact with
>the drums, resulting in more pedal travel required to actuate the
brakes.
>
>The solution to the long pedal travel is a normal adjustment of the
rear
>brakes. Do this before you reattach the cable. However, beware
that when
>you do reattach the hand brake cable it may be too short, and you
may end
>up with unwanted tension in the cable when the hand lever is down.
You
>would want to slacken off the length adjustment in the cable until
you get
>just a little bit of slack at rest to assure that the brakes do not
drag
>when the hand brake is off.
>
>Barney Gaylord
>1958 MGA with an attitude
>
>
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