The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Huck Brake adjustments

Is it common after installing all new pads to have to adjust them a few times? Ill have the wheels to where they will go around 1 turn and have alot of pedal then when i come back home they are free spinning again. Ive adjusted them twice as of now and there getting better every time. Is this a common brake in cycle or? My drums are not in the best of shape but i think there salvagible.

If the drums aren't turned smooth and have grooves or ridges, that can happen.
Say the new shoes were 1/8" wider than the old ones. The edges of the lining will be rubbing on the sides of the worn area before the face of the shoe contacts the face of the drum. You have to wear all of the edges off before the shoe will seat.
The same with ridges and grooves. You are grinding the shoes to fit the drums instead of machining the drums to take new shoes.

Thanks Jim makes perfect sense!

What Jim posted makes complete sense if you installed new
shoes without turning the drums.
I might add that in years past, when a shop turned the drums,
they also ground the shoe radius to fit the new diameter.
I did a set of brakes on a '50, 3100 where we turned the drums
and the new shoes were only contacting at a small portion of
the center. You really had to stand on the brakes to stop.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/115452306

dg

In my experience, Huck brakes will need some additional adjustments even if you have the drums turned. It is due to what Denny describes above (new shoe radius doesn't match the drum radius). Nobody offers shoe grinding anymore.
After driving a while, the shoes will conform to the shape of the drums.
After a couple of adjustments over time, you will have excellent brakes.

Carl

Uhhhh, not entirely spot on Carl want to be technically correct here.
The advantage to the Bendix brake or the Duo-Serve as GM called it,
over the Huck brake was that it was a single anchor type with
a single adjustment for both shoes. But more importantly this
design was self-actuating or self-energizing, meaning the
shoes were pulled into the drum by the momentum of the vehicle
when applying the brake both forward or backward. This eased
the pedal pressure over the Huck style brake.
Only the later versions of the Bendix style brake were they
self-adjusting, somewhere in the late 50's or early 60's if
I remember correctly. My memory is fuzzy as to the exact year
GM introduced them, Dave or Jerry can probably zero in on the
exact year.

dg

Good catch DG! I need to quit working on other people's newer vehicles. It is filling the limited capacity of my brain with modern pollution.
Carl

No problem Carl, my role isn't to correct everyone's reply.
It's just difficult to cover all the bases in a couple of
written sentences. I get criticized for my lengthy answers at
times, it's just my attempt to present all the facts, not to
be a know it all. The best posts are neither needlessly long-
winded nor so brief as to be cryptic yet leave nothing to
question. Many discussions on this and lots of other sites
are like a cross word puzzle in that you have to dig and
search page after page before you see the whole picture.
That's the only reason I go into such detail as I tend
to do.
See....there I go again with another short story.
Have a good weekend buddy.
dg

This has been my experience.

I have my shoes arched at Brake and Equipment Warehouse in Minneapolis. It makes a huge difference, especially if your drums have been turned. You can send them your shoes to be ground but you will need to get an accurate measurement of each drum and then mark the shoes that go with each drum measurement. The last ones I had done last June cost me 5.00 per shoe.

You're fortunate to have a shop in your area that still does shoe re-arching Don. Not many left now days. Probably been at least 25 years since I had a set of shoes matched to the turned drums, all of them round here expect you to wear them in.
dg

My 1 Ton drums were turned out .040 and I did not have the new shoes ground. It took more than one season of driving for the shoes to show a pattern of complete contact. However, the brakes were excellent from the start. I think this may be because they are oversized and I don't carry loads.

A lot depends on the composition also. I don't know where my
friend got the shoes for his truck but they seems to be a
harder compound cuz you really had to stand on them to stop. Did
stop nice and straight and if you had a good grip on the tiller
you could lock them up. He never got to drive it enough to lap
in the shoes so we don't know what it would be like after a bit
of stop and go. 10 or 15 miles won't tell you much.

dg

To pking75:
Was just browsing when I saw your thread. When adjusting Huck style shoes, adjust each shoe up until the star wheel is hard to turn. Your drums then should be unable to be turned. Now back that shoe off until you have very light resistance when turning the drum. Repeat for the other shoe. This will help drive the shoe down to the bottom of the drum so more shoe area will be contacting the drum from the start.

Do this for each shoe. When both shoes for each drum are adjusted in this manner, you can now adjust each shoe up tighter one notch at a time until you feel a slightly heavier drag, but not too much. This should help if your drums are not in too bad a shape.

Regarding Bendix style: The key here is not just that you have both shoes anchored at the top and one adjustment at the bottom for both shoes, but rather the shoes are different lengths and made from different materials. The primary (front) shoe has shorter material, the secondary (rear) shoe has longer material either bonded or riveted to the metal back. The primary shoe is softer (and therefore stickier) than the secondary shoe and tends to grab the drum better as it rotates forward. This makes the primary shoe want to rotate with the drum forcing the secondary shoe into the drum which helps assist application of the shoe into the drum surface. This is why the Bendix style brakes give you a better braking feel than the Huck. It's also why you seem to have to press harder on the pedal when backing up because the secondary shoe now becomes the primary shoe momentarily. The secondary shoe material is harder and does not grab the drum as well. The Huck system should have the same feel either forward or backward as the shoes are the same hardness and operate independently from each other (no rotational transfer of energy). Hope this helps more than confuses.
Dave