Hi everyone, would anyone know the correct way to setting up the park brake, I have a drum brake brake with shoes inside which is operated by a lever which is attached to a hydraulic parking brake chamber, I've had the drum off and the brake shoes have loads of lining on them I've roughened up the shoes wi3th some rough sand paper and also done the same with the drum, now what I can't seem to figure out is how to correctly adjust the set up so its at its most efficient, I know on the older cars with drum brakes you used to turn a nut on the back of the backplate until the shoes were tight and you couldn't move the drum, then you would slacken the nut off slightly until the drum moved and then after that adjust the park brake cable, and this is what I'm not sure about on my 1990 villa, there doesn't seem to be any sort of adjustment, I've adjusted the threaded bar that goes through the clevis and pin on the park brake lever until it won't go any further but I'm not sure if the parking brake is tight enough when it's engaged, I can put it into gear and give the engine some power and the vehicle won't move, but if I give it alot of power it does move obviously not freely I'm only talking an inch and as soon as it moves I stop all power , I'm quite confident that it will hold on the steepest of hills as soon as it moves, but because I'm going to take it for its first vehicle test soon on the 1st October, I don't know if it will hold enough when it goes on the brake rollers, now because I can't do anymore adjustment from hydraulic chamber to the clevis and pin on the park brake lever, im thinking, have I not done it correctly or not, has anyone got any knowledge on the best way to set this up properly, it feels like I need to adjust it up about another 3 complete turns, but I can't cause its reached the point where the threaded bar section that comes out of the hydraulic chamber cannot go any further, and now I'm thinking maybe when I fitted the hydraulic chamber perhaps I should have screwed the threaded bar down into the hydralic chamber a bit more like say 4 turns, then attach the lever to it and that will give me that extra few turns I need,, see when I bought the new chamber I never screwed the bar down, I just fitted it connected up the hydraulic lines, I've looked at it so many times but I just can't seem to think if I've done it correctly or not, any help would appreciate,
Thanks kev
It has been lots of years since I worked on those systems. It sounds like you have it pretty good. The engine has more torque than the wheels would.
Ah I see thanks for that, excuse the late reply, I fell asleep earlier well I am 6 hrs in front of you, il be asleep again in a bit, so basically even if I was able to tighten up by 3 turns the torque of the engine would still make it move if I gave it full power,, yeah perhaps I'm worrying to mutch about the brake rollers at the testing station, I can remember years ago when I first started driving they didn't have rollers on the ground that you drive in, the tester would take the vehicle out for a drive to do the brake test, and park on a hill to test the park brake. Alot simpler, I can remember when these rollers were first introduced over here, thanks for reply, kev