Need Large Brake Adj Tool

[meadowbrook]

Hi folks, long time no chat.

I was wondering if anyone is aware of a tool to do major adjustments on a 1931 Chrysler Imperial, which has a similar drum brake design as the Mopars of the 50s (except it only uses a single wheel cylinder) but has a much larger drum and brake shoe diameter. 

Any tips or workarounds would be appreciated.

Thanks 

[Los_Control]

Watch this video .... the guy is kinda lazy at times it seems but he made a nice tool. ..... Just looking at it you will get several ideas on how to make your own using allthread

 

I have seen some made out of plywood to sit on spindle then allthread attached to it with a adjustable metal arm ..... so many ways to make it .... not sure I would buy one but if I did I would not buy from Moparpro.

 

 

Edited June 17 by Los_Control

[bacelaw]

I have the legit AAMCO tool - and I can tell you, Keith's homemade tool is easier to use.  Just some threaded rod, some hardware, and a metal pointer of some sort.  It allows more control.  The AAMCO tool kind of "builds in" the clearances automatically. Keith's tool allows for more control.

[spongebob]

i have kieths tool. works fine.    capt den

[Sniper]

I just slotted the lower adjusting bolts on the inboard side, you know where the nut is. Use Dremel tool. And I can loosen the nut adjust them with a screwdriver then tighten the nut up you'll have to take the drum off and get a socket on the other side to torque the nuts down so much easier than that tool

[keithb7]

Here is less rambling and more details to build your own brake tool. Share with eveyone you know! Lol.

 

 

[meadowbrook]

After slotting the lower adjustment bolts, do you just just rotate them (while the upper ‘minor’ adjustment bolts are all the way in) till you feel a slight drag , then remove the drag and then tighten the lower bolts. 
Then do you replace the drum and adjust the upper ‘minor’ bolts to get that slight drag again?

[TodFitch]

1 hour ago, meadowbrook said:

After slotting the lower adjustment bolts, do you just just rotate them (while the upper ‘minor’ adjustment bolts are all the way in) till you feel a slight drag , then remove the drag and then tighten the lower bolts. 
Then do you replace the drum and adjust the upper ‘minor’ bolts to get that slight drag again?

It is an iterative process as changing one adjustment affects the other. There used to be a tech article about that procedure on this website a long time ago but I don't know if it is still accessible. I wrote up my own version on my vanity website at https://www.ply33.com/Repair/brakes but that was before I snagged an AMMCO 1750 tool. Using the tool is faster and, in my opinion, easier and more accurate but you can do it without.

 

In either case you need the brake shoe linings to have the same radius as the inside of the drum. I found a roll of sticky backed sand paper at my local hardware store. I cut strips to go in each drum with the sticky side to the drum surface then rubbed the shoes by hand against the sand paper until there was uniform contact (basically sanding off a bunch of magic marker marks I made on the shoe lining. Each drum will be slightly different diameter if they've been turned at all so you will need to keep the arc'd shoes with the drums they are fitted to.

[Bingster]

I still think that it's really immoral of those who ripped off his design without giving him any re numeration or royalties from it.

[Dan Hiebert]

I saw a carbon copy of the tool keithb7 is using on one of the Mopar parts sites recently.  $95!  

 

I usually start a little leery of procedures that outwardly only appear to be for less work effort, but I keep in mind that the way cars are manufactured, even our old ones, is not for the ease of maintenance, it's for the ease of manufacturing them.  I notice none of the auto makers advertise easy home maintenance, anymore.  Heck, I know dealerships that use bad words to describe working on their own company's products.  Many "workarounds" actually overcome engineered maintenance difficulties, such as adjusting brakes that need a special manufacturer only tool to accomplish. 

Edited June 18 by Dan Hiebert
typo

[bacelaw]

9 hours ago, meadowbrook said:

After slotting the lower adjustment bolts, do you just just rotate them (while the upper ‘minor’ adjustment bolts are all the way in) till you feel a slight drag , then remove the drag and then tighten the lower bolts. 
Then do you replace the drum and adjust the upper ‘minor’ bolts to get that slight drag again?

 

If you get one shoe to just barely touch the drum via the minor adjustment, then you use that shoe as a reference point.  You take the drum off and use the tool to adjust both shoes so they are concentric with the drum - the same bit of clearance as you spin the pointer of the tool across the surface of both shoes.

 

I found that after 500 miles or more of driving, my brakes got better - the shoes will start to form to any irregularities in each drum.  Readjust at that point.

[Sniper]

Oh I run into that all the time in my current job. Engineering designs a product is inexpensively as possible. Production comes along and says G it's going to cost us more to make it than you saved in the design. And then service gets dumped the resulting Nightmare and it's three times as expensive to work on it as they saved in the design or the production of it. But different budgets and they don't care even though we're all the same company. Just remember most of those procedures in the book were written by engineers and not technicians or mechanics and most of those engineers don't have a clue when it comes to working on things.

[Sam Buchanan]

9 hours ago, TodFitch said:

It is an iterative process as changing one adjustment affects the other. There used to be a tech article about that procedure on this website a long time ago but I don't know if it is still accessible.

 

Here it is:

 

https://p15-d24.com/page/p15d24/tech/brakes.html/

[westaus29]

A shout out to Sam Buchanan for designing and updating his original brake adjusting tool back in 2019. I have passed his link on to lots of Chrysler fans in recent years. Keith's video uses the same tool and is a good resource.