Brake issues

[philcobill]

We are repairing and servicing the brakes on Little Willie, our 1929 Special Coupe. When driving the car the brakes were very stiff, and you had to push very hard to get the car to stop. I felt unsafe driving it because the car would not stop quickly, you had to anticipate stopping a long distance from a full stop even using the engine to hake slow the car down.. It was like driving a truck.

The mechanic looking at the brakes discovered they were in bad shape. The drums needed to be turned, two of the linkage rods were bent, the parking brake needed repair, the brake shoe linings all needed to be replaced, and then mated and arced to fit the drums. The brake linings were contacting a only a small part of the brake drums. It is my understanding that the linings must contact the drums their whole length, so mating and arcing the linings will fix that. Two of the car's four backer plates were cracked and needed to be replaced. There are a couple of other minor issues involving the brakes and hubs that will be addressed as well.

I am glad that we are having the brakes repaired and serviced so that Little Willie will be safe to drive. My question is, with all of these problems, if a competent mechanic addresses all of these issues, is there anything else that we should watch our for?

[mcgarrett]

After repairs are made, they should be adjusted "correctly" for them to work as Ford designed them.

Here's a good video of the procedure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMizfaKHXVQ&t=3s

[Fordestes]

Be sure to address the brake cross shaft bushings and any sloppy brake rod pin holes like the front and rear lever pins eyes etc. just to mention a few, the more slop there is the less efficient the brakes can be and more difficult to keep in adjustment, there is a youtube video that explains the repair process with emphasis on several items which will make or break a good brake job and how to correct them , it is called Model A Brakes by Benght Karlsson.
he seems to be very thorough in the repair of Model A brakes, someone here may be able to direct you to another video, it is certainly worth viewing.

[nkaminar]

I found that adjusting the brakes with bias to the front instead of the back reduced my stopping distance by about 25%.

When you are all done do a brake test on dry level asphalt. Drive the car at 20 mph and do a panic stop by pressing hard on the brake peddle. The car should stop within 25 feet or less without pulling to one side or the other. You should be able to measure the stopping distance by measuring the skid marks. If it pulls tighten up the front brake opposite to the side it pulls to by one click and try again.

The brake shoes will bed in after you drive the car for a while and the braking will improve but they may need an additional adjustment. After the brakes wear they will need a maintenance adjustment. It should only take one click on all brakes.

[Bob Bidonde]

My experience with braking my Model A's is the same as nkaminar's, so I setup the service brakes with a front bias (15 degrees forward bias of operating levers). I read somewhere that Ford engineers biased the rear brakes to maintain steering control in a hard stop. However, since the 1940s most if not all cars & trucks have a bias to the front brakes to take advantage of the front nose down inertia of the vehicle during a hard stop. The nose down inertia adds a downward force to the front wheels.

[Patrick L.]

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These are mechanical non energizing brakes which are very different to modern energizing hydraulic systems. It takes some getting used to working on these.

[nkaminar]

The Flat Head Ted kit will make the brakes self energizing.