Front Brakes Hanging Intermittingly

By: Wayne Mandeville

Almost all of us have worked on our brakes at one time or another. They never seem to meet our expectations or perform as we think they should. I am guilty of being one of those Model A’ers who tinker with their brakes. A while back I installed front brake floaters and they seemed to help a lot. It is not a hard job and is well worth the time and effort. I highly recommend them. As usual though things eventually happen.

The brakes performed well for a year and a half. Then for no particular reason that I could come up with, my front brakes began to stick or drag. It was impossible to keep them adjusted, or at least that is what I thought. After several brake inspections and replacement of the brake roller tracks, new springs, adjustment wedges, and brake adjusting shafts, my brakes were still sticking. Everything looked good-----but still the problem persisted. Some good friends also looked and no one could find anything wrong. Telephone conversations did not lead to any resolution. The addition of a brake pedal return spring did not help either. It was now starting to get really annoying and just one step beyond being aggravated!!!

I was visiting Robert Davis and was sharing the old problem. He said “heck, let’s have another look” and so we got started. For about the tenth inspection in the past month nothing was found to cause the problem so we put the brakes back together. Now they seemed to stick even worse. We immediately removed the front drums and started looking once again. As Robert was moving the brake lever back and forth I saw something that just did not seem right with the brake shoe rollers. The rollers were hitting the washers on the wedge stud instead of the wedge and not pushing the brake wedge back up as they should. It didn’t do it every time but it was happening. After a short 10 second conversation we both agreed what to do. I ground part of the washer off so the rollers could make good contact with the wedge. The reassembly went fast since we had plenty of experience. With some adjustments we were finished. Presto-----my brakes now work great.

I guess the washers were slightly oversize and causing the problem. I don’t really know but I can tell you that grinding them down some solved the problem. A lot of the other new parts did not fix the problem but at least helped my brakes. We all need to look close at all new parts for flaws and production issues to make sure they are OK.

It is really easy to assume that new parts are always good, and nothing can be further from the truth. With so many suppliers competing for business and suppliers eager to fill suppliers shelves with parts, manufacturers are making money any way they can. One common practice is to cut down on machine tolerances which cut costs. Some times the parts work and sometimes they don’t. If you get lucky and things work just be thankful.

My suggestion is to buy from reputable dealers who advertise products made in the USA and are Ford Motor Company sanctioned. There are a lot of foreign products that are definitely inferior and can cause many headaches. Sometimes we don’t have a choice where parts are made and many dealers will state that in their catalog Good dealers with make things right even if an occasion bad part slips through their shelves. Nothing guarantees that everything is going to be 100% right all the time but good dealers backing their products to me deserves a lot of loyalty to them.

Good luck on your repairs and never give up. Everything can be fixed with either time, patience, money, or with the help of others. You just have to figure that out! The support of a good wife helps, too.

Wayne