hard brake pedal on my stang it has drum brakes i was wondering if it can be fixed by bleeding brakes ?

 

A few questions need to be answered first. Do you have manual or power brakes? Single or dual bowl master cylinder? Have you tried adjusting the shoes?

If manual, then you will have a harder brake then with power. As long as the car is stopping good. Remember this, safety first.... You can do several things.
1. Bleed old brake fluid out of your system...completely. (Get all that old brown junk out and start fresh)
2. Adjust your shoes to where the drums fit snugly. (They still need to turn freely)
3. While you have your drums off, clean everything up and replace anything that is broken or leaking. Check the cylinders and make sure you have no leaks and no binding.
4. Make sure your e-brake works well, you never know when you will need it.
5. Check master cylinder, ifindoubt,replace it.

 

im not sure if manual or power how can i tell the difference...its a a single cylinder

 

look under your hood, drivers side, is there a large round thingy between your master cylinder and the firewall? if not, then you have manual brakes, if so, then you have power. Sounds like you might have power brakes, and you've lost you power assist (the round thingy). this would cause your brake pedal to
feel hard to push. check for a vacuum leak between the motor and the canister. if you can get a hold of a vacuum pump, check and see if the canister will retain vacuum.

 

I guess by single cylinder you mean a single bowl master cylinder? By having a single bowl master, then I am pretty sure you will have manual brakes. However, look at the master cylinder, if it is mounted directly to the firewall then you have manual. If mounted to a large round unit then you have power. You should also have a vacuum line running from the round unit to your intake manifold. If you have manual then again the pedal will be harder than normal. But run the checks anyways to make sure that nothing is broken or leaking. A good way to learn about brakesmight I add.

I have power brakes on the 67 and manual on the 69. The manual is harder to push but the brakes work very well. If you are not racing then you can stick with the manual but I highly recommend to upgrade to a dual bowl master cylinder. Adds to the safety factor. Also, consider upgrading the front drums to discs. Yes, you can have manual discs. Makes things a lot safer.

 

+1 on discs... my 4whl manual drums were just scary....

 

No. if you have manual brakes, hard pedal is either no clearance between the shoes and the drums, rusted pivot point on the brake pedal or seized wheel cyl's. You need to do some investigation as to which of these it is. Jack the car up off of the tires. can you rotate the wheels without a lot of scrapping noise. if yes, move on to removing the wheels and tires an watching the brake shoes as some one pushes on them (softly). If the shoes move go to the brake pedal and check it for seizure. If you can't rotatae the wheels, adjust the satr wheels until you can. If the brake shoes don't move when pushed soflty, its a hyd issue and could be the wheel cyl, the MC or the lines are plugged.
If you have power brakes, the most likely cause of hard brake pedal is no vacumn or a blown diaphram in the booster. after that its the same as manual brakes.