mk1-forum.net

1960 on single leading shoe

brand new master cyl,genuine tin lockheed
new rear cyls
new front cyls
new shoes front and rear

hardly stops,,its really bad

all adjusted up ok,,bled properly,,numerous times.
ive even used yet another new master cylinder

flexys no sign of bulging,wheel drag ,and flow fluid freely

brake shoes are apec brand. front and rear..

more you press it to stop,just feels like it wont stop.

loads of these early cars with this brake systems here,,all stop ok
this doesnt,,,its startin to do my skull in.....

I have twin leading shoe brakes & even with them, I have the same problem when I replace the shoes, it takes a lot of careful perseverance to bed in modern asbestos-free shoes. It's possible your drums are glazed, if you haven't done so already, polishing the inside surface with wet & dry emery paper, (about 600 grade) can provide a better surface for your new shoes to bed into. I find using the emery paper wet brings more muck off the surface, followed by a clean with brake cleaner. Are your drums worn? if so, it will take longer for the shoes to form to the radius of the drums. (No offence meant, I'm not suggesting you would put your car together with badly worn drums, but with the hardness of modern brake linings, it doesn't take much) Hope this is of some help.

Seems this has been a problem with these brakes since the late 50's.
When my 59 Minor was difficult to stop, my boss at the garage showed me how the brake drums actually flexed oval under pressure.
I had once gotten some high-metal content shoes from an H-production Sprite which helped.

Bedding modern shoes in are hard also roughing all the inside of the drums up helps alot aswell and bit of the shoes now as they will have smoothed off a bit but they get hot so brakes aren't too good

IMO upgrade to disc's don't think anyone would really care

found out the problem
APEC brake shoes !!!!

they have either changed the compound or these are a bad batch

fitted a different brand of shoe,,and much better brakes,,should be fad when bedded in

My SLS 850 brakes are adequate and not that much worse than my old 998 Cooper brakes.

I always use NOS asbestos brake linings and am just careful when removing the drums and cleaning them out. Also the drums (or discs) will not get buggered up by using horrible asbestos free linings.

Always worth removing the glaze as mentioned before.

they were deglazed....made no difference with the apec shoes