Dtimekw

Yup, factory manual steering. It pulls pretty hard. I would say that at 15 mph, when I hit the brakes fairly hard (not hard enough to skid) the car will pulls hard enough to go into the left lane and head for my driveway. I'd say approx 1-2 full steering wheel turns (stock steering wheel)

I ask about the back brakes to rule them out. Last night I loosened both front brakes (adjusters) which forced more braking on the back. When I did, the rear/driver locked up so I loosed them and adjusted them so they would apply equal braking. Once I got both back brakes to apply equally, I adjusted the fronts back into the game and still had the same pulling to the left. I did notice however, when I would back up and drive in reverse and apply the brakes to adjust them automatically, the steering wheel would turn to the right when I applied the brakes, not as much as it does to the left when I am braking going forward but it was noticable. The car tracks straight in fwd and reverse with no brakes applied.

I confirmed a bit ago that all four sets of shoes are in the correct orientation (small liner to the front of the car). Could any of the springs be an issue? They have all been replaced and I am double checking if the hold down springs are the same and use the same length pin but could a spring cause this?

Gun Jam

I was trying to think of a simple way to isolate systems for easier analysis.

The best i could come up with was to drain the rear brake reservoir and fill the line with air so it doesn't actuate the rear brakes and see if it tracks straight then....not real brilliant. (actuating the SCs unloaded say with no brake pad will eject the pushrods and then the oil from the SC...avoid. So pulling the pads off and trying is out)

whatever is causing the pull is profound...it should have shown up already if it were brakes alone i would think.

Right now im kinda thinking that maybe a tie-rod is shot and as weight transfers to the front that wheel changes angle thus pulling the car off course...maybe

it could still very well be a pressure differential issue as well....we havent ruled that out yet either.

So finally

1) do all SCs give about equal pisses of oil volume when you bleed them?
2) try the test involving pulling on the wheel like i described.

-Gun

JDraper

Dumb question, but is there a chance that you mixed a front and rear line up when you installed the tee's?

Gun Jam

it should still work because there is no proportioning valve...right?

unless the front and rear individual MCs are a different size and the front is running both tires on the left side of the car and rear is running front right and rear right....that had crossed my mind...hummm

JDraper

It should work without a proportioning valve. Maybe not really well, but that would only mess up the front to rear bias, not pull side to side. The things that come to mind for me you've already covered. Stuff like kinked or partially blocked lines, a dragging slave cylinder, bad adjusters, brakes on the wrong side of the spindle, hardware installed wrong...You sure the adjusters are in the correct way? The pivot nut on the adjuster should face the front and the star adjuster should face the rear.

Dtimekw

I think by loosening the front adjusters that told me the problem was in the front, just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing regarding the rear brakes. I checked all steering joints before I took it in for an alignment, the mech confirmed all joints were in good shape. I thought the same thing Gun, the tie rod or one of the rods being the cause (bump steer or sloppy) but even when I apply a little braking power (nose of car not dipping down) it still does it so I think that is out. is there anything in the alignment that could cause this only in braking but not in driving? Caster? Camber, Toe? If Toe was out, it would pull with and without braking....so I don't think it's Toe

I am going to replace (again) the springs and ensure they are from the same manufacturer. I can't think of anything that would cause the driver side to apply more pressure. Instead it would be the passenger side not applying enough pressure ( frozen WC or shoes being restricted from moving properly). When i replaced the shoes, the back place was fine, no grooves for the shoes to hang up on.

I am not sure if the WCs are pissing the same, I had Jr under the car doing the dirty work

I double checked to routing of the brake lines. They are correct. The front comes off of the MC and goes to a TEE (not the factory one) and the rear is a single line that goes back to the axle and goes into a TEE which goes to each rear WC. I don't think the factory "TEE" was a proportioner of any kind, was it? I though proportioning valves were for disc/disc or disc/drum not drum/drum, right?

I am going to replace the springs again and make sure they all come from the same manufacturer. I am still looking thinking the pass side is not applying the appropriate pressure as the driver. If nothing else, I'll pull the lines and blow them out again with air and start over

Just saw your post, yup, adjusters are on correct and seem to be working. I loosen them up and drive backwards, they adjust. I did manually adjust the pass side to drag the shoe a little and still pulled to the left which sounds like it's air in the system or a hung W/C. That is why I am wondering if the shoes are hanging?

Gun Jam

yeah proportioning valves are only for Disc/drum setups and maybe disc/disc...never used on drum/drum setups..my thought was you thought you installed the proportioning valve on the rear line but you ended up putting it on one of the front wheel brake lines thinking it was the rear line..... so when you adjusted it it only limited pressure to one front wheel causing the car to pull hard...but since you dont have one...you cant make that mistake


So my last suggestion is to check for yourself the volume of oil peeing out during bleeding...from each cylinder.

-Gun

Dtimekw

I appreciate all the help on this guys. I am frustrated, especially since drums are supposed to be the simplest (not easiest) to understand.

I'll take another shot at it tomorrow and post. Thank goodness for prescription medication and Vodka

hiboostwoody

Here's a trick that works. Cut the head off an 8 penny nail leaving about 1/4" of the stem of the nail on the head, take the line loose from the wheel cylinder you want to take out of the system and slip the nail stem first into the line. Then put the line back on the wheel cylinder and tighten it just enough so that you don't crush the inverted flare in the cylinder. That will isolate that wheel cylinder from the system. I have used this trick a few times to get out of the mountains when I blew a wheel cylinder on my old jeep.

Gun Jam

cool I like that!

-Gun