29 model a brakes

[A nubie]

Hello all I am a Nubie to Model A's i have a 29 pickup that i have recently purchased and the brakes are not functioning well. Any tips the pads are ok, i have not adjusted them at all yet. just wanted to see if you guys had any tricks for a new guy. I plan on driving this thing quite often to church ,lunch and such so it is curtail that i have descent Brakes. please educate me.

[John LaVoy]

Mechanical brakes, when adjusted, work quite well. We use them on the sedan we take on the longer tours. But getting all of the bugs out will take a little work. There are many books written on the process, but really it is getting all of the slack out of the system to make them work the best.

[Patrick L.]

As John said, these brakes do work well when everything is as it should be. I'd suggest getting one of the repair manuals that the 'A' vendors such as Bratton's, Synder's, Mac's, etc sells. Most folks seem to like the Les Andrews manual.

[Kevin in NJ]

Depending on you level of mechanical skills you might be best taking the drums off and seeing what you have.

First question. The front brake lever, is it leaning forward some? If it is not leaning forward then you know the front brakes have problems.

To make brakes work you need all the parts all in good shape and properly set up. It is not cheap to buy and properly set up the brakes so most are marginally set up to operation with used parts. Then there is the issues with drums, shoes fit to the drums and proper centering.

You need to be able to measure the drums to be sure they not wore out. You need to check the shoes fit the drums. You also need to be sure the shoes are centered to the axle. While this is all apart you can check out how worn the parts are and consider buying the quality repro parts available today if needed.

Keep in mind when Ford designed and set up the brake system he had it set up with tolerances in the thousands of an inch. Someone who had access to the Ford archives looked up some info about the brakes for me once. While going through the stack of brake prints he was amazed (pretty hard for someone that was already familiar with Ford precision manufacturing) at the precision levels of design that went into the brake system.
So take extra care to do your best to accurately do your brake work.

[RichPA]

My car had a similar problem, you had to stand on the pedal and it hardly stopped. I found that someone overtightened the bolt that goes through thr backing plate on the LF wheel causing the operating wedge not to move. Because all the wheels are tied together mechanically, if one wheel won't apply none of them will. The bolt should be loose enough to allow movement with a cotter pin installed so it will stay put. Pull all the drums, have someone step on the pedal slowly while you check for shoe movement of the shoes at each wheel. Lnkage wear and proper adjustment is critical. Good luck.

[A nubie]

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Thank you all for the info. I have adjusted the brakes and they are working lots better.