Lee, I am positive they are NOT working.I have only been able to adjust the front shoes by removing the drum, forcing an adjuster open, reassembling the drum, see if it drags, press the brake pedal if it does, then repeat until it s too tighten back off a click. Yet I can lock up the wheels with the brakes with the wheels off the ground.
The friction pads are assembled correctly and the nuts are backed off as directed in the assembly instructions I have. Thanks, Mike
Pretty easy to checkā¦with one front drum removed, push pedal to floor and release. Now take a look at the brake shoesā¦they should be held out in a quite expanded position. In other words, you should NOT be able to re-install the drum at this point. Assuming this is the case, take a small screwdriver and lever the spring clip away from the serrated barā¦the shoes should remain in their expanded position.
If one pump of the pedal did NOT expand the shoes sufficiently, try two pumps. The point is, after some number of pumps, the shoes must move to, and be held in, an expanded position.
Thanks Lee. I agree with what you are saying. As I noted earlier I have been adjusting the brakes by lifting the referenced spring clip and forcing the adjusting lever out.If itās too far out to get the drum on, I push the adjusting bar it back in after lifting the clip. I will try what you suggest after I convince myself I wonāt blow the pistons out to the wheel cylinder. I am on the road now and do not have any pics to look at. I think as long as the return springs are connected to the shoes I will not be able to inadvertently disassemble the wheel cylinders so I expect Iāll give it a whirl.
One or 2 pedal pumps will not displace enough fluid to push the pistons out of their bores.
Again, this may be no help at all, in which case ignore meā¦ but my '68 Mustangās self-adjusting rear drums only adjust themselves when the brakes are applied whilst reversing. I donāt know how the Jag setup works, but itās just a thought.
Roger
other vehicles i have worked upon are the same
ā¦but not so with the 120/140.
this is the method i now use to bleed brakes
gravity bleed each item from the top down by cracking each union, fluid must drip out,
then fronts first, same thing, then rears, with unions along the way.
for the calipers/cylinders, I let them drip slowly for quite a few minutes, one at a time
all this takes a couple of hours, no pedal pumping.
once all done, i pump the pedal hard and do the cylinders again
usually < 600ml bottle
since doing it this way, things have been so much easier
I think the key is air bubbles have a chance to flow up & out over time, without getting churned by pedal
rags should be used to avoid spillage on paint
its been so long since I worked on MKVII brakesā¦they strongly resist bleeding!
I believe Mike tried that, and it didnt work: I am puzzled why it didnt.
Paul, I tried that on the E Type clutch. Ray can make it work. I tried it slow, I tried it fast and I tried it several times. My son also tried it but neither of us could make it work, so I am not enthusiastic. I also do not understand the term āunionā anyway. Do we mean the bleeders? Do we mean āunionā in the broader sense where I would disconnect each fitting one at a time progressively? The idea is attractive but has proven to be time consuming to me without results.
Read āunionā as being every break in the line from the M/c to the wheels.
every place a brake line joins, and can be loosened, the rears usually have metal line junctions, metal/rubber, any boosters/servos
If brake fluid wont run out, under gravity, something is amiss
had a master cyl rebuilt, and it was faulty, worth blocking its ports to see if it is bypassing. as someone suggested
seems that fluid is flowing freely thru your system?, so it is strange the air is not fully expelled