Fino's 58 Wagon

Just wanting to confirm I set-up the drums and self-adjusters correctly....here is how I set -up my brakes - this isn't actually a picture of mine, but from a friend on OWF and I set mine up just the same. In this pic, the passenger side is on the left, and the driver side is on the right.....this puts the longer shoe and the star wheel towards the rear of the vehicle.


Here is an actual pic of my rear passenger side in place...if you zoom in, you can see the 'R' on the self adjusting mechanism.

 

The adjusters were way out of adjustment....don't know if it was me when i put them on, or if the mechanism is not self adjusting properly....but, I think they are installed correctly. For lack of a better way to explain it, to expand/tighten the shoes against the drums, the star wheel turns such that the inside/diff side of the star wheel is pushed upwards as you would do through the window in the backing plate (in other words, on the driver side the wheel turn ccw when viewed from the rear, and the passenger side turns cw when viewed from the rear). They ratchet freely in this direction - the lever arm that slots into the star wheel teeth allows the outside/wheel side of the star wheel to move downward, and blocks it from moving upward (without manually pushing the lever out off of the star wheel). This is basically then same when in self adjustment mode, where when that lever arm is pulled back enough when the shoes are pushed out (in reverse), the lever will raise up to the next higher tooth on the star wheel, and then when the brakes are released, the spring return the lever to its initial position which moves the outside of the star wheel down - and this should expand the adjuster, tightening the brakes. So basically, it all seems to functioning again - test drive was positive....but we'll see if they stay adjusted.....maybe i never got it all adjusted correctly the first time, but both sides were exactly the same. Now I need to readjust the parking brake cable length - its a bit too tight.

 

Mine are young....

Road feel is important, especially in steering....it's not that I like simple, it's just all I can manage. I prefer driving my rigs over building them, so working out details of complex systems quickly kills my interest. To each their own in how they choose to build a rig - I don't recommend anyone build a rig the way I do. Function and capability are not the only considerations. Its important to me to keep an authenticity to my rigs along with a time period aesthetic....the 58 already challenges my notion of authenticity everyday, not to mention the builder did too much complex stuff that he didn't really know how to do, so it spends as much time getting troubleshot as it does driving.