MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Help!! Brake shoes

Hi there.

Can anyone help with my brake shoes? I have bought a set of mini front brake shoes (ferodo no FSB373)and I am having trouble getting the drums to fit. The shoes seem to be the same as the standard shoes but slightly wider as mentioned on a recent thread. When I try and fit the drums they just seize on to the shoes at the point where the studs pass through the drum. I can force them on further but cannot turn the drum at all. The adjusters are all the way out and the handbrake is disconnected and loose. Comparing the old shoes with the new there is a very small differance in material thickness but surely I should expect that with new shoes? Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers Carl
C Bintcliffe

two quick checks - have you inadvertently fitted one of the adjuster wedges flipped over the wrong way, and do the drums have a discernible lip on the leading edge?
David Smith

Thanks David but the wedges are the right way round and actually touching each other, so no problems there. There is a slight lip on the drum which I have cleaned of with a flap wheel but surely the drum should still go on with the adjusters fully backed off!

Carl
C Bintcliffe

I have been assured that there were various lengths of wedges used on different cars. Is it possible that someone installed a set of non-Spridget wedges on your car to compensate for the stock shoes?
David "If so, I'll trade!" Lieb
David Lieb

There are long and short wedges - maybe you could measure what you have. I don't know what length is correct.

You'd have thought someone would put really useful information like this in a book...

I have a selection of wedges of different lengths I don't want.
Daniel Thirteen-Twelve

>>> You'd have thought someone would put really useful information like this in a book...

Or even in the Wiki...
David "anonymous" Lieb
David Lieb

Here are a couple of photos showing the various bits.


C Bintcliffe

and the shoes!


C Bintcliffe

another!


C Bintcliffe

Carl, mine were a tight fit when I put them on but they did fit. The wedges are the only variable, so I would have a look at those. The shoes need to be central also (obvious I know).
John Collinson

and finaly.

It looks like the shoes cannot go any further into the adjuster housing as they are already touching the cage that holds the wedges.

Carl


C Bintcliffe

Those new linings are substantially wider. Could that be the reason? Is the inside of the drum hitting the shoes?

-:G:-
Gryf Ketcherside

I have mini front shoes on my back brakes

I would seriously consider having new drums at the same time if I were you Carl

I had one brand new and one part-used and the shoes were an easier fit on the new drum. I do think it will be an issue with the inner worn sector stopping the shoe and drum mating easily.

mine fitted OK ish though and I havent had the sort of problem you are having

perhaps the shoes you have are wider than mine, measure the available depth with the shoe on its fixtures. Mine were a snug fit but there was extar room in "parts of millimetres" rather than full millimetres
Bill sdgpm

Umm,
Those shoes are on the wrong way around aren't they. They should have the lining at the leading edge
Guy Weller

Guy, the shoes are fitted the correct way.

The bad news is that someone appears to have nicked Carl's rear dampers!
Dave O'Neill 2

I'm still not convinced, Dave. That must be the right hand wheel, and I am pretty sure that the front shoe should have the lining biased towards the top, leading edge.

Any other opinions?

That said, I don't know if this would make any difference to the fit of the drum over them. But also the pistons at the top don't appear to be fully retracted into the cylinder either. Maybe its just the way it looks in the photo.

Guy
Guy Weller

at the mo I'm with Guy re: the leading edge being wrong (but am going to have to check on my car later!). Also where is the right hand end of the upper spring? And maybe the right hand piston rubber cover is not fitted in it's groove, meaning the RH piston is out too far? Try opening the bleed nipple and squeezing the pistons together.
David Smith

Piston broke! Thats sounds likely at the moment!
The car has been sat for quite a while so is there a chance that the piston is siezed in place? New cylinder required maybe? The dust shield on the one thats on has gone hard which is why its not fitting properly. Are the springs supposed to be attached at both ends? and as for the damper I just thought it was another oil leak waiting to happen!

Carl
C Bintcliffe

Wheel cylinders are dead cheap - less than £10 anyway. But they have to sell them cheap to overcome people's fear of fitting them! And of course you may end up replacing the brake pipes because the old ones seize into the old cylinder!

Guy
Guy Weller

The shoes are correctly fitted when the 'bare metal' part is on the leading edge of both shoes.

A
Anthony Cutler

I seem to have fitted my brake shoes like Guy said, brakes are working fine, but when I look in the Haynes owners workshop manual (1958 to 1980) on page 157 Dave and Anthony are right and Carl has fitted his brakeshoes the right way.

Pascal


pjw Seezink

Btw my Wedges are 21 mm long, but my guess is that when the wedges from Carl's car are to long the old brakelinings wouldn't have fit neither. So I would also suggest to check the free movement of the pistons of the brake cilinder and the handbrake mechanism.

Pascal


pjw Seezink

Pascal,

Your probably not the only one - just looked in Bristows Restoration Guide - and for a U.K. car i think he has them reversed.

Will recheck mine !

Richard.
richard boobier

I had a similar problem when I fitted new rear brake shoes, severe binding & unable to rotate the brake drum......My problem was that the slot in the shoe for the handbrake lever was to small, causing the shoe to sit at a slight angle...I made the slot a little bigger & the drum then fitted o/k...It only took about 8 or 9 hours to solve that little problem !
a cotterill

Had I been driving for 20 years with the brakes round the wrong way? Changed the brakes and still got them wrong?


rob multi-sheds thomas

And this one?


rob multi-sheds thomas

I thought it was a well known fact that the Haynes manual has the illustration wrong!

But there being a "right" and a "wrong" way may be something of an urban myth. I cannot see it makes much difference on brakes where there is just a single cylinder.

But where there are two cylinders, (i.e. twin leading shoes) then the piston should definitely operate against where the the lining is nearest to the end of the shoe as this gives greater leverage and better brake operation. Also, as the leading edge of the lining comes into contact with the rotating drum the effect is for the drum to drag the shoe with it, increasing the braking effect.

Guy
Guy Weller

It appears there are different part numbers for the Mini 7 inch brakes. Front ones are wider. Might it be that your wider ones are also different in some other dimension? Might the measurement of 2x single cylinder be smaller than 1x rear cylinder + 1x wedged-spacer-thing? I had similar trouble getting Wolseley shoes and used a set of Morris Minor front 8-inch shoes which were B45tard tight in the new drums.

PS Are my shoes (2 posts above) incorrect, then?
rob multi-sheds thomas

Guy when you say 2 cylinders then I assume you mean a cylinder at either end of the shoes and not simply a twin piston cylinder as fitted to later Spridgets and Minis etc!!
In which case I think I am inclined to agree with you.
Robert (Bob) Midget Turbo

Yes Robert, that is what I was meaning. Hence my comment about twin leading shoes.

The way I have always fitted shoes is by making sure that on both, the lining is biased towards the end of the shoe that points against the normal rotation of the wheel. Even on single cylinder (twin piston, or the single piston/ sliding cylinder varieties) I do them this way around in the belief that the "grabbing" effect as the shoe contacts the drum and levers the shoe against the opposite end pivot point has some beneficial effect.

But I have said enough, I am interested to hear from someone who knows for certain. Mark? Daniel? Bill? Anyone??!

Guy
Guy Weller

Guy, can you expand on '..Haynes illustration is wrong' - as on p152 of my copy it's a photograph not a drawing, so less likely to be wrong (maybe).
It also agrees with the exploded drawing in the BL Parts book, and the drawing in Moss catalogue, and this is how I have my racer (pic). But I only know what I see in books, who really knows?


David Smith

...and the BL workshop manual diagram...
David Smith

Bill is uncertain but inclined to agree with you and Bob

I see the drum as meeting the front "cliff face" on its way round the backplate, the cliff face puts on pressure and the "take-up" across the lining area does the rest as it lifts inline with the drum

Now tell me I'm wrong, or not

I do find the fitting of springs and handbrake levers more problematic than on other cars

Look at how nicely Ford Escort brake assemblies work and fit

staggering.
Bill sdgpm

try again

...and the BL workshop manual diagram...


David Smith

David

You beat me to it.

I've been busy photographing the BMC workshop manual which shows both types of rear brakes.

I would have scanned it, but for some strange reason my scanner fails to work if I've used my printer - they both share the same parallel cable - unless I reboot the PC. Only since upgrading to XP.

Anyway, here's the photo...

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc7/daveo138/RearBrakes.jpg
Dave O'Neill 2

we David's stick together!
This all reminds me of Gulliver's travels - Bigendians and Littlendians......
David Smith

So the orientation of the shoes is not my problem then! Any other ideas or should I start by replacing the cylinder?

Carl
C Bintcliffe

don't spend money yet - try opening the bleed nipple and squeezing the pistons together.
David Smith

Carl,
I am sticking to my version of fitting the shoes! But I did say way back that I didn't think that whichever way around they were fitted would make any difference to your clearance issue. I did comment that the pistons in your photo don't appear to be fully retracted into the cylinder.

David(s) I always believed that the Haynes photo (page 158 in my copy) was a photo taken of an inadvertently wrongly assembled set of shoes! And as for the drawing in the workshop manual, I find the perspective very odd. Either it is also wrongly drawn with respect to the hand brake cam/lever thing, or it is drawn upside-down. Which side do you think that is supposed to represent?

I have been looking through various other photos and drawings and there seem to be as many fitted one way as the other! So perhaps it doesn't matter. Some drawings seem to "fudge" the position of the linings on the shoes. The clearest diagram that I can find which shows the lining positions is p52 of Grahame Bristow's "Restoring Sprites and midgets". My guess is that despite my theorising, it doesn't actually matter.
Except on twin-leading shoe brakes.

BTW, I think I first picked up this idea on drum braked British motorbikes, and have just stuck with it!
Guy Weller

bump, to keep the pics accessible while t'other thread is active...
David Smith

Just to let you know I have just fitted a new wheel cylinder as the other one appeared to have siezed. The clip was the usual challenge(5mins) but once on the drum magically slid in to place.
Thank you for all the advise,another job ticked off the list but I think I noticed several new ones while I was under there!

Carl
C Bintcliffe

I find handbrake adj and self-servo effects better when 'bare metal' part of shoe on leading edge.

A
Anthony Cutler

This thread was discussed between 14/02/2009 and 21/02/2009

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG Midget and Sprite Technical BBS is active now.