This 52 XK120 FHC would not roll freely, and it turns out that the right front brake shoes were binding hard on the drum.
Removing the drum (with difficulty) showed that the wheel bearing rotated freely, and the wheel cylinders were fully retracted and at their most loose position. The cylinder pistons could not be pushed in any further. Opening the bleeder screw did not help.
Is it possible that the wrong shoes or cylinders were installed? Were there 2 different drum types offered?
Heritage certificate shows date of manufacture as MAR 52.
The last owner thought that possibly the car originally had disc wheels and was converted to wires years ago before their ownership.
It is hard to believe that this problem JUST came up, as I imagine that previous owners drove the car after the wire wheel conversion without a problem.
There are no factory stampings or markings on cylinders or shoes.
Maybe a more recent brake job was done and the wrong cylinders or shoes were used?
… or is this a known problem?
Am i overlooking something?
It is very possible that someone installed wrong shoes or wheel cylinders or drums.
The self-adjusting shoes and cylinders would be different from the non-self-adjusting.
It certainly had disc wheels when it was new. Wires were not offered until later.
Front wire drums are different from disc drums.
Jason: we checked the springs and they snapped the shoes in very well…so i dont think that is it.
I checked the brake cylinders and they are of the disc brake type (attached pix so the brake setup is probably for disc wheels), and when some earlier owner converted to wire wheels, they just kept the disc wheels’ brake components.
THEN, I am thinking that the last PO ordered one set of shoes for WIRE WHEEL BRAKES (since there was no documentation with the car), naturally assuming that they needed wire wheel shoes, but actually needing disc wheel shoes.
Possible?
