Rear Brake Adjustment

[Beau]

Can anyone give me instructions and/or tips about adjusting my rear drum brakes on my 97 4x4 f150 ext. cab? I'd appreciate any help you guys can give me. Thanks.

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[Dewayne Fuller]

Backing up and pumping the brakes hard several times is the normal way, unless your shoes are worn down too far to be adjusted.

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[Granpa]

Braking to a stop in reverse should let the self adjusters do their job. A regular stop will do. All Ford drum brakes are pretty much the same, as to what the pieces look like. Shoe partial rotation in reverse with the brakes on, cause adjuster cable to pull tight, lifting up adjuster pawl on star wheel. When stopped, adjuster pawl moves down to normal position, forcing star wheel to turn one tooth worth. This lengthens the adjuster, pushing the two shoes further apart, reducing the slack. Left and Right side adjusters are opposite thread, sometimes people would get them mixed up, and brakes would de-adjust instead, driving them crazy. Some of them have a letter stamped on the end of the shaft so they could be figured out.
But my description above can be done by hand with the drum off, just pull up/out hard on the cable, and let it down, should click one tooth on the star wheel tighter (downwards direction). When doing brake work, I adjust them tight enough to just barely get the drum back on. If the adjusters are working, they will take it from there. Post back if you need more detailed info.

[This message has been edited by Granpa (edited 10-19-2000).]