Brakes pulling to right

[Gareth Rogers]

Hi to all ! Have problem with brakes pulling to right but only for first mile or so then they seem to be ok! So far , I have changed out all the brake cylinders on the left hand side but problem persists. I have also tried adjusting the brakes several times. I am at a loss and need your suggestions. My Minor is a 1098 saloon with 8 inch drums. I did also change out the brake fluid and bleed all brakes recently, I am assuming its not a suspension fault as the pulling does not persist more than a mile or so. Tyre pressures are also ok.

[bmcecosse]

Try swapping the shoes side to side - to see if the 'pull' follows the shoes. If it does - then swap one shoe each side back and hopefully it will balance out. If not - new shoes. If it's only a slight pull - it may be the rear brakes - have you checked the left rear cylinder?

[minor65]

My minors brakes suffered from pulling to the left. Fitting new cylinders made no difference. Fitting new mintex shoes and getting the drums skimmed helped a lot.

[bmcecosse]

New shoes may indeed by necessary, but worth trying the swap.

[Gareth Rogers]

Thanks to bmcecosse , minor65,and all! Will try changing shoes over! Have already replaced rear left cylinder !

[bmcecosse]

It can be a bit of a nightmare.....I spent a week trying to get a good reliable balance....must have had the wheels off/on a couple of dozen times...Thank goodness for the air hammer gun! Eventually I had to give in and fit a new set of shoes....... If you beef up the return springs - it will add to the pedal force.....

[Gareth Rogers]

Thanks Bmcecosse ! Havent got air hammer so am doing it the stone age way, my wife tells me that i am obviously clueless as I have taken the wheels off ' more than once ' ! Ah well 'success is going from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm' according to W Churchill !

[bmcecosse]

Oh dear - at least use a speedbrace!

[David53]

A neat little trick I use to balance the adjustment is to jack up the front of the car then use an adjustable steering wheel crook lock between the seat and the brake pedal to apply force to the pedal. With a modest amount of pressure on the pedal try and turn each front wheel. You will prob find that one turns much easier than the other. Adjust so they effort required to run the wheel is equal then apply another notch of pressure to the pedal and retry until you get to the stage where you cannot turn the wheels at all. Basically you are replicating the effect of a foot pressing on the pedal. Then do the same for the rear wheels.

[bmcecosse]

Sadly -the 'adjuster' has no effect on the braking force at each wheel - only on pedal travel. It does involve shoe swapping, or v small adjustments can be made with the return springs -hooking them in different holes to pull more - or less - against the hydraulic piston....but that effect is very small.

[Gareth Rogers]

Thanks again to both of you have noted all down carefully and will report back on progress!

[David53]

But if one set of shoes is, say, 1/8" further from it's drum than the other does not the closer set hit it's drum first, which would cause the car to pull? adjusting the shoes the way I suggested certainly cured my problem.

[kennatt]

with the very old cable brakes then this is the case,but with hydrolic brakesthey ballence themselves ie as soon as one shoe touches the drum,there is now no pressure on that one untill all of the other shoes make contact either at the same time or one by one. Once all the shoes are contacting drums(Or pads to disc) then equal pressure is on all brakes. Its pressure,not adjustment . Except when adjusting the hand brake,which is basically the old cable brake system. Imballence is invariable caused by mismatched braking material ie shoes or contamination ie oil, grease, brake fluid,or other mechanical faults ie siezed cylinders,you can adjust all you like but it will still pull to one side.

[David53]

Ahhh yes of course that makes sense. Like hydraulic lifters in an engine. Thanks. My Morrie pulls up beautifully but I have a strange problem on one of my other cars which has the single cylinder at the top. When cold the brakes are perfect, smooth and firm and pull up evenly. Once I've driven for a while I start to get a slight pull to the left on light pedal pressure and on firmer pressure I get a bit of pulsing. Not severe but enough to be annoying. Only happens once brakes heat up a little. No one I know has been able to throw any light on it. Any ideas?

[blues2rock]

As a general rule brakes that are fine when cold but display problems when warm/hot suggests a sticky cylinder/caliper allowing one side to get too hot - easily checked by feeling the wheels after a run using the brakes a few times to see which side is hotter.

Some brake imbalance problems, whether when hot, cold, or all the time can be traced to a defective flexy hose. Either a damaged wall allowing an amount of ballooning, which is easy to detect by holding the hose whilst an assistant pumps the pedal, or an internal defect allowing partial collapse of the inner liner - not so easy to confirm.

Bottom line is if all else fails - try replacing the flexy hose(s).

[kennatt]

pulsing through the pedal is usually a sign of warped disc or drum.made worse as it heats up.when cold its ok but once the brakes have been used and the drum/disc gets hot then the warping would be more pronounced as they expand. Its easy to check if you have friendly garage with a rolling brake tester.. It shows up on the reading.the needle varies up and down.

[Gareth Rogers]

Many thanks to you all, will report back on progress!

[chickenjohn]

As a general rule brakes that are fine when cold but display problems when warm/hot suggests a sticky cylinder/caliper allowing one side to get too hot - easily checked by feeling the wheels after a run using the brakes a few times to see which side is hotter.

Some brake imbalance problems, whether when hot, cold, or all the time can be traced to a defective flexy hose. Either a damaged wall allowing an amount of ballooning, which is easy to detect by holding the hose whilst an assistant pumps the pedal, or an internal defect allowing partial collapse of the inner liner - not so easy to confirm.

Bottom line is if all else fails - try replacing the flexy hose(s).

Yes! Change the left hand side flexible brake hose, if this is partly collapsed/ blocked then it will cause the symptoms you describe.