17-10-2024, 05:22 PM
One of the problems of the pre Girling brakes is that as the linings wear the movement of the brake lever increases until you reach a point where the springs in one hub brake are slightly stronger that in the other with the result that the latter can bind on full lock. My first Seven was hydraulic and I didn't appreciate the situation until I was helping a friend with a chummy who suffered the problem, try as we did we never resolved the problem. 20 years later in 1981 I acquired a cable braked RN and that's when I started to appreciate the problem. One of the first jobs I did was to replace the heavily worn brake shoe end caps with slightly thicker ones and coupled with new linings meant there was very little movement of the brake levers which hung almost under the king pins and the problem didn't arise. The car saw a lot of use and gradually the problem appeared which was resolved by fitting shims to the end of the brake shoes which returned the brake levers to their initial position. I have a bag full of these shims which are bent in a shallow U shape so they can't fall out and are easily changed. Another problem when I got the cable braked RN was that the replacement brake cams then available had a sharp corner which really chewed up the brake shoe end caps or shims. I soon realized that problem and put a nice radius on the cam corners.
I quite often see this problem on other owners cars where they complain that one of the brakes bind and I see one fully off and the other nearly on and a variety of springs on the brake levers.
Another item to prolong the life of the linings is to fit oversize brake shoe pivot pins and to have a selection of brake drums.
I quite often see this problem on other owners cars where they complain that one of the brakes bind and I see one fully off and the other nearly on and a variety of springs on the brake levers.
Another item to prolong the life of the linings is to fit oversize brake shoe pivot pins and to have a selection of brake drums.