Making brakes more sensative

[MaverickDaKid]

A while ago a friend of mine made the pedal harder by doing something under the rear end of my truck. He grabbed a screw driver got under there for under a min and made the brakes and E brake stiffer....

I was looking around on teh website and found some posts on making them more sensative but nothing real solid, the ones that I did find were only for teh E brake.

Does anyone know how to do this. And could they describe it for me in detail please. If anyone had pics of the area that would be awsome, thanks.

 

[Albino 94LTD]

There is an adjuster between the shoes that has a wheel on it. He stuck the screwdriver through an oblong hole in the backing plate and manually adjusted the shoes wider (closer to the drum) to compensate for wear. If he went too far, you could overheat the shoes and drums causing premature failure of the shoes and heat checking of the drums.

This is an automatic adjuster that works when you back up and put on the brakes (back down the street and apply the brakes several times, it's the same thing).

It is possible, if it has been a long time since a brake job, that the auto adjust doesn't function anymore.

That is a good reason to replace all the mounting hardware when you do a brake job.

Edit; remember to put the plug back in the hole of the backing plate. If you forget drive in a lot of water, it will get inside the drum and your brakes won't work well until they get hot enough to dry out.

 

[MaverickDaKid]

Thanks for reply,

I noticed you said drum and shoes....Do disc brakes have drums and shoes. Mine are all 4 discs. I think I have shoes cause thats what the hand brake uses....could be totaly wrong cause I don't know much about brakes. As for the drums that sounds iffy to me...I did find some rubber thingys no the back of the the disks though... i poped off the thing but can't seem to find what im looking for.


edit: I'll try driving aroudn backwards for a bit at a parking lot and brake. Do you know how long this process should last before brakes get sensative.