OK Guys,

I need to check the rear brakes (drums) to make sure they are adjusted correctly. Does anyone have either a diagram or link to a manual page where I can see pics of the correct set up and how to adjust. Basically I have never actually had any dealings with rear drums and shoes so a little bit in the dark :/

Any help appreciated.
Oh they are standard sierra drums and shoes.

Thanks

Andy

As long as everything is properly assembled and you have not over tensioned the hand brake cable they should not need manual adjustment, just slacken off the handbrake cable and pump the brake pedal a few times. Then re-tension cable so the handbrake lever is just beginning to take up the slack as you start to apply it.
Work the handbrake on and off a few times while pumping the pedal and then check the drums will still turn by hand. If you still have excess lost motion in the handbrake lever you can adjust the cable tension a couple of turns at a time , after each adjustment pump the pedal and work the handbrake a few times and re-check the the brake drums can still turn with out much effort. Ideally you want the handbrake to come fully on at about 50% of the hand brake travel.

So called auto adjusters very rarely work as they should , your better off adjusting them manually. Remove the brake drum and look for a lever with a ratchet and pawl, make sure that handbrake cable adjuster is backed right off then use a screwdriver t5o operate the ratchet out one click at a time , refitting the drum after every click , rotate to check drum isn't binding, repeat until clearance between shoes and drum is reduced as much as possible without the brakes binding. If they are binding just release the ratchet and repeat until happy. Taken longer for me to type this than do the job

Thanks Mel, hopefully get an hour or so tonight in the garage and will post progress.

Cheers

andy

If you look at the brake shoes there should be a lever with ratchet teeth attached to the leading shoe( the one with the thicker lining) and a pawl , the trailing shoe has the handbrake lever attached. Just use a screwdriver to lever the ratchet lever so the pawl clicks to the next adjuster stage

After looking after large fleets of Fords in the 1970s and 1980s I can assure you they shouldn't ever need touched if the handbrake cable is properly adjusted.

Totally different from my findings !. I've yet to come across an auto adjuster that is efficient

I've never found the old auto adjusters to be all that efficient either, the teeth used to strip pretty easily on them and they had a habit of slipping back, an old rally drivers trick was to adjust them up and stick both adjuster parts together with a tack of weld so they could not slip back. You just ground off the tack and adjust them up and re-tack it when the time comes. If you are not handbrake turning it regularly you can be a really long time in between.