My Polara has drum brakes all round. A friend took her for a drive and said that, compared to other Mopars he had driven, the brakes were grabbing and the rears felt like they needed to be adjusted up.
As I planned on servicing them, I took the rear drums off, cleaned everything, replaced the shoes, wheel cylinders, flexihose and pipes, and adjusted them up properly. Test drive, both rear brakes getting very hot. Tried loads of stuff and got so fed up, I adjusted them right off just so I could use her.....new issue.....and this is where I should have spotted the clues .......
MOT man had previously said that the rear brakes are fantastic and better than most modern cars....clue no1
Clue no2, when I got fed up and adjusted the rears right off, the fronts, which had always been stone cold, were now getting hot!!
The penny dropped.....when I adjusted the rears off, the fronts started having to work for a living as they were adjusted way too far off. When my new rear brakes were adjusted properly, they were obviously doing all the braking and getting red hot....I adjusted all four properly and everything good now, all four warm but not hot.
If the MOT man had said the fronts werent as good as the backs, instead of just saying the rears are good, I would have twigged earlier.....doh!
So my learning point on this was that its very important to check all four drum brakes are adjusted properly, not just the ones you are working on.
The learning curve just goes on and on eh
cheers steve
