Hi please can someone out there please tell me the best way to adjust/set up the brakes on my pre-Girling ruby and the best way to go about getting the balance right on the back brakes ta stuart...

OK. You'll get many opinions how to do this but here's mine.

Loosen the front brake cable such that the front brakes are not working.

Adjust the rear brakes by shimming the pivot post until the shoes just rub the drums. Check that each side rubs the same by listening to them.

Take the car onto a quiet road and brake to a standstill, with you hands off the wheel, from about 20 mph. The car will probably pull to one side due to twist in the cross shaft and give in the cables. Re-adjust, with shims, to even out this pull until the car pulls up straight.

Adjust the front brakes, by shimming again, until the shoes just rub the drums evenly.

It's time consuming but worth the effort. You can, of course, adjust the rear cables with cable benders instead of shimming (but only one per cable) but none of us would EVER do that, would we ??

STEVE

I have never heard of adjusting the brakes using shims.

Hi Steve,

A couple of points to add to your excellent advice. Unequal rear braking is often caused by the cross-shaft brackets distorting, rather than the cross-shaft twisting or give in the (equal length) cables.

Using adjustable length cables can be a good idea if you can get them. If you do adjust the rear cables with cable benders, use only one, and put it on the offside cable. This means that give in the cable bender will compensate (a little) for give in the nearside braking linkage.

David

Shimming the rear brake pivot is described in the last paragraph of Page H-8 of Doug Woodrow's 'Austin Seven Manual' and is far better, and results in bertter braking performance, than any form of adjustment using just the cables which moves the wrong end of the shoe nearer to the drum.

STEVE