Pulling to the Right

Traction Owner’s Club › Forums › Technical › Brakes › Pulling to the Right

  • This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 1 week, 1 day ago by Roger Grix.
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  • 30th June 2026 at 1:07 pm #38645
    Roger Grix
    Participant

      I have been battling with my brakes, with the car pulling to the right. I have had the drums on and off, fitted new shoes, The rh shoes were worn a bit more on the outside than the inside. I reduced the free play on the guide pins with extra washers, selected best fit bushes and  eccentrics, and thought it was better.

      I have done all the centralising etc. The new shoes have had the leading edges chamfered. The left brake adjusts fine and goes on and off as it should but the right one seems to have some sort of self-servo action. When adjusted and rotated clockwise (forwards) it tightens up and locks to the extent that I can’t turn the wheel by hand. Rotating anti-clock (reverse) it is fine.

      With light braking it tends to the right but heavy braking seems to hold a straight line pretty well.

      Could it be the springs? There is no obvious distortion of the backplate. Drums were skimmed when rebuilt but no signs of wear. They were also swopped over after this problem started but the problem remained on the right hand wheel.

      I am about to start over removing the drum and re-centralising but would appreciate any ideas. It is a bit tedious taking the drums off and on.

      Roger_G

      1st July 2026 at 11:25 pm #38659
      Roger Grix
      Participant

        Following my post from yesterday, I collected the tools and prepared to have a look inside the brake drum.

        Quite a lot of dust but no real damage. I started the centralising again, carefully following the instructions and it seems that all is well.

        Presumably I did not follow the instructions properly last time.

        The only thing that I noticed that looked odd was that the eccentrics were set to open the shoes out to nearly maximum, which is not the case now, nor what you would expect with new brake shoes.

        I guess that my last effort was just a c**k up.

        “Could do better” as I seem to remember hearing a few times in my youth.

        Roger_G

         

        7th July 2026 at 12:05 pm #38703
        Chris
        Participant

          Hi Roger

          Does it still pull to one side? I assume we are talking about the front brakes.

          Your mention of there being some kind of self servo action made me wonder if maybe the shoes have been put on back to front on one side – there is supposed to be a self servo action but it will be less if the front and back shoes are reversed.  If that was the case, the fault would be on the left side.

          Just a thought

          Chris

          7th July 2026 at 11:47 pm #38709
          Roger Grix
          Participant

            Hi Chris,

            Thanks for your input. If you see my second post, it was clearly a set-up problem created by me. I am not sure how I got it so wrong on one side.

            Anyway it is sorted now and that’s good because I had an emergency stop today and all was well.

            Roger_G

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