Re: double pumping

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

In a brilliant stroke of genius, cookiedan@domain.elided (Daniel Nees) blurted
out:

>I was playing er working on Ugly this weekend and while I was under him
>I noted that the E-brake cable was sagging quite a bit. The PC had cut
>the cable on both sides and added cable clamps to hold the cables
>together, so I loosened these up and pulled up the slack, then I turned
>the adjustment nut in some more on the E-brake thingy. This really
>stiffeed up the brake pedal and eliminated the need to double pump every
>time I had to stop. I would recommend everyone to tighten up there
>E-brake cable.

Ahhh... Dan...  This is NOT the proper way to adjust your rear drum brakes.

What you have done by tightening the e-brake cable in this manner is to
partially apply the e-brake.  You probably have them dragging all the time.

What you need to do is loosen the e-brake cable, then properly adjust the
drum brakes *at the drum* via the star wheel on the automatic adjuster.
The star wheel is accessible through the slotted hole on the lower inside
face of the backing plate.  The teeth of the star wheel facing the hole
need to be turned upward to tighten the brake.  When properly adjusted, the
brake shoes will have very slight to almost no drag on the drum.  The
adjuster is supposed to do this automatically every time you back up and
apply the brakes, but for several reasons they will quit working.  One side
works on my 76 Traveler and the other doesn't.

After you properly adjust the brakes at the drum, *then* you can check to
see how much slack you have on th e-brake cable.  It doesn't matter how
much slack it has, so long as the e-brakes lock securely when the e-brake
pedal is applied (without going all the way to the floor).

Take care,

John
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