Jipjob

Just want to say thank you for all the help I have gotten with my old Dodge. I finally got my brakes up to par with a special tool I used to get the major adjustment right and used the spray talcum for contact of brake shoes. Lots of time and gray matter. Thanks again-jon

Just goggle my question and it there to hold residual pressure in the brake system! Not much just to keep the brake pedal up.

Could some here explain what does the rubbe check valve do in the M/C (42 Dodge)? Thanks

What would I use to check to the backing plate to see if it was bent? I swapped out the left side drum today just to see if that could make a difference but no headway. Took the car out but I still feel uncomfortable with this brake issue. How do I cheek the brake shoe to check to see if there bent. Thanks I really appreciate any and all answers.

Adam here are two proper shoes! Above

Here is the photo of the shoe wear! Not what I would like to have and wondering why it makes the contact like it does?

Thought I might just get away from my old Dodge and show you guys my first car the model A Ford Roadster! Yes that me on my future first car in high school. To one cool 1960 Catalina Pontiac and my big toy my 78 Bluebird Motor home! Oh that house was built in 1898 and that where I grew up and I own that also. Kind of like old things. Jon

Bleed brakes and they are back to factory settings. Crossing fingers that all this stuff that I did the last few days works. Jon

This is the observation that I observed after using a light spray on talcom powered to check shoe brakes on frount passenger side. I sprayed the drum with the powder and proceeded to install the hub over the shoes and adjust the minor setting to make contact of shoes to brake drum. After I completed that operation I spun the brake drum and removed the hub. Upon removal of the drum the shoes showed greatcontact except on both s bottom edges and the contact area showed contact but on the inward side about haft across booth shoes the was no contact material and that ran about 1 -1/2 on the inside of the shoe at and angle to the inside of the shoe on both sides. Any ideas about why this is happening? I will take a picture this afternoon and put it up on this site of shoe contact. Jon

Good old mopars and there braking systems! Why on gods green earth did they haft to use such an abortion for stoping there cars in 1942! Adams stated to read the manual for problem and yes I have many times. Something's are just plain as day and others well that another story. This morning I started to check out the pin and springs that had hold the shoe in place and notice the wear marks on the brake shoe was only ridding on one side. So I put some sand paper attached with glue to the inside of drum and proceeded to even out that wear pattern. Took awhile but the shoe is at least sitting on the drum at 90 percent contact. But that dam hold down spring has got me whooped. It still slides to the outset of the drum and makes kind of a sound like the main spring that keeps the brake cyclinder together. I'm tired tonight and so good night.

Is there a secret to why my 42 frount brakes rear shoe tend to want slide over to the outside? The only thing that holed the shoe is a spring. Two caps and a small rod that goes through the backing plate. Nothing else to holed the shoe in place. What can I do to resolve this problem? This causes a noise when I depress the brake. Thanks

Well we go again but today a good friend came over to check out my brakes. Now here is what we found on the right front break drum and brake shoes. First of all I have heard a slight noise coming from the break drum for along time. It sounded like the backing plate was twisting a little when depressing the brakes. Upon removal of the drum we notice the rear shoes was .040 smaller on the inside of the shoe than the outside this might be what's causing the noise issue. When we put the drum and tire back on and I applied brake pressure the brake drum and tire would move out as if it were being pushed out by the misaligned shoe. But I have double checked all the misc. parts that hold the shoe in place but everything looks ok. What can cause this to happen? But tomorrow I'm going to take the brake shoe oft and measure the shoe with a mic and get a more accurate reading. These are new shoes and they should be within specs. If this shoe is wearing out on one side I will make sure that it is floating right in the brake cylinder. I did notice one more thing is that minior adjustment for setting the brakes was tight on the forward adjusting screw and the rear one had play in it after reinstalling the break drum and tire. This i would surmise because of the major setting on those adjustments. Anyway thanks for the help so far and maybe just maybe this shoe position might just lead into the resolvance of the air n the brake issue. Jon

Just wondering what kind of material that I should use to check the contact from the drum to the shoes. Being an Retired marine machinist We used a blueing agent but with brake shoes obliviously this can not be used. Any ideas or what you have used in the past? Also I'm going to glue sand paper on the drum to get as much contact of shoe possible. What grit should I use? If you haven't seen my post on this break evolution I posted it n 1949goat subject on bleeding brakes. Oh one more thing I used the proper tooling for installation of the brake shoes to the drums. Jon

Well this is cowdodge and like goat I have had this same problem. I have an issue with my brake pedal going soft right after I bleed brakes. Let see if I can explain this by stating after throughly bleeding the air out of the system I can drive my car forward and hit the brakes and all four wheel will lock up in place like they are suppose too. But then when I continue to drive my pedal becomes soft but the brake pedal stays at the proper factory settings! I can get the brakes to lock up but the faster I go the more pressure I haft to put on the brakes. As I have read here on this article the shoes might be the culprit! I installed new shoes when rebuilding the brake system but sadly I just threw the old ones away and now I wish I had not done that. The brakes have been properly adjusted with that Special tool used to set the heal and toe measurements and so that was done by the book. I have all new wheel cylinders, master cylinder , springs and new hyd tubbing. No leaks to found any ware! So back to square one the brake shoes! The front right brake drum is oversized by machining but is with the proper specs. I feel as though this might be the problem but can I just have a brake relineing shop install new brake shoes that would be thicker than I have now? And do you think this might help this spongy brake issue? Thanks and goat did you get your brakes to finally work correctly? And if so could you do a line item form of how you did this. I got lost in all the interactions about the different ways people deal with bleeding there brakes and I just wanted the meat and patatoes of how you resolve your problem. Thanks Jon really appreciate the help!

Does anyone here know what the proper brake shoe material thickness should be for a 42 Dodge? Or something around that errear? Really need the correct thickness. Thanks Jon