Posted by Clint Dixon on Tuesday, May 22, 2001 at 8:59PM :
In Reply to: Re: No Mas Mushy Brakes posted by Cheyenne Dave on Tuesday, May 22, 2001 at 9:29AM :
Dave, glad I could help. I was wondering, when you say you are removing the inspection plates and setting the shoes by "sight and finally by feel", are you including the use of a feeler gauge in this process? Here is what happened to me about 12 years ago...
I always believed people when they told me that Power Wagon brakes were marginal at best and one could not lock up the wheels at will on these WDX-WM300 style trucks. A combination of 3 mistakes caused me to believe otherwise:
1. I incorrectly set the shoe clearance, as advised, to .006 at heal, toe, and center. (I had the shoes' radii ground to match the diameter of my newly turned drums).
2. I mistakenly tested the brakes on a severly crowned blacktop road.
3. I dumbly hit the brake pedal real hard at 50 mph to see how they worked.
All 4 wheels immediately locked, the truck nose dived, the skid marks indicated that the rear wheels nearly left the pavement, I lost all control of the truck, and we just missed a culvert as we slid into the ditch. (Ask Martie when you see her at the Rally).
After regaining composure, I reset the shoe clearance per '47 shop manual. (I believe that would be about .003 heal and .006 toe). The brakes then worked much smoother.
What I determined from this was that at .006 clearance both ends, the toes were the only part of the shoes making contact and were creating the lever effect as that of dropping the tongue of a wagon to the ground as it rolls down a hill! Very scarry. What I am getting at is that, when adjusted correctly, the entire shoe should make contact at the same time, but at least in the case of a panic stop, heal first is better than toe first.
When I had the new shoes ground I had a hard time convincing the shop that they were the correct parts. The drums were not turned out overly big, but the shoes appeared to be made for 14 inch drums, not 14 1/8 like the Power Wagons. By the time they were arced (sp?) to fit, over half the lining was removed from the centers and the heals and toes were barely touched.
Have a good trip Dave! Clint
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