Hey guys. question for you. Just picked up a 94 ford exploder for a winter car. Seems the rear brakes are draging (drum). the rear wheels are much hotter than the front and it smells like clutch/brakes are hot. Can anyone shead some light on what could be wrong? I'm going to try and adjust "auto" adjust spring to pull the wheels in some. I'm not to familar with Furds and no one i know has really owned one. Nate
it checked that and it dosent' seem to be on. though the drum had to be beat off kinda today to remove it. I thought it was only the ridge of rust I had to make it over. it could be the e-brake is disengauged but still rubbing quite a bit.... Nate.
brake drum nate, even if the emergency brake is not on the rear cables going inside the drum could be hanging up from rust or corrosion. remove the rubber grommet behind the backing plate, move the adjuster and spin the wheel at the same time. if the wheel is loosening up that means the adjuster is loosening up. hit the drum a few times with a hammer and it should come out. in extreme cases if the rust build-up is real bad you would need a torch. if you need to replace the cable youll have to disassemble the shoes, which is no big deal. dont forget to have the drum re-surfaced. another possibility of a hot or frozen brake drum is axle shaft seals leaking oil on the brake shoes. once you get the drum off make sure theres no oil on the shoes or the backing plate. good luck
If that's not it, the porportioning valve is designed to keep a bit of pressure in the rear lines to keep the springs from pulling the pads in too far away from the drums. You need this so they will actually hit the drums the next time you use the brakes. Perhaps that is sticky and keeping too much pressure in the line? Check the other stuff first of course, do a full brake fluid flush, and see what happens.
