The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk pedal travel

after surviving catastrophic brake failure over the weekend and the subsequent and necessary repairs, i am now faced with the new experience of getting used to the new "feel" of the repaired brake system.

my question is, what is the normal (or expected) pedal travel on new brakes? at the moment i have maybe a max of 3-4 inches of travel from the neutral position, before i already have significant stopping power. it feels odd given my history with this truck so i just want to know if this is to be expected, that this is normal, or if i should be looking at some adjustments to the system.

any thoughts???

p.j., if everything is new and the lines are completely bleed of air and the shoes are adjusted up properly and the master cylinder plunger has the proper clearance and all the slop is taken out of the pedal linkage and is freshly lubed (stops to takes a breath). You should have about 3/4" free play in the pedal before you feel the pushrod make contact with the piston in the master cylinder. From there on it's just non-compressible fluid in the lines and wheel cylinders pushing the shoes out to contact the drums.
Depending on how much clearance you have given the shoes to the drum, you will end up with one to two inches of pedal movement to make a normal stop. As the shoes wear down this will increase and a break shoe adjustment should bring it back up to the short stroke again.
Depending on the shoe adjustment you may get three to four inches in a panic stop that locks the wheels up because of flex in all the components.
Unlike the single adjustment of the Bendix brakes, each shoe on the Huck brakes has to be adjusted up with even clearance to the drum. It is dificult to get the proper feel with all new wheel cylinders and next to impossable with old rusty adjusters.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

kept the hard lines and the wheel cylinders but new hoses and master cylinder. flushed everything with my new vac pump until it ran clear so to the best of my abilities, i think it's about as good as it gets.

adjusted the shoes on all four wheels per specifications in the book and even adjusted the e-brake (never know when that may come in handy).

i think i might back the shoes off a little more to increase pedal travel just to make it feel a more like it used to. i've got plenty of stopping power so i won't, or shouldn't, lose any effective travel/stopping power.

sorry i didn't get to the gas sending unit to take a picture, and wouldn't ya know...it seems to be working fine now.

As long as you don't run out of pedal and your comfortable with a low pedal your good to go p.j. The pedal is functional over the entire length of its stroke as long as it's firm and there is no air in the system to compress. It slows down the reaction time though when you have a lot of travel and as the brakes wear the pedal will continue to drop.
No sweat on the pictures, I’d rather see you youngsters stay at the work bench and keep the SS money flowing. Tthis old geezer, that be Tiny, came through with some pics that give me a pretty good idea of, “the way it was”. I just wanted to see what the original was like in case I ever ran into one somewhere down the line.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL