Morris Minor Owners Club

I have run out of adjustment on my front brakes while still having plenty of material left on the shoes - a common occurrence it would seem! While being aware of the larger adjusters available I wondered if a cheaper solution would be to put a thin shim between the metal piston and sealing rubber in the wheel cylinders - a suitable sized coin perhaps. It may be necessary to remove them when fitting new shoes but are there any other problems? Has anyone tried this?

As a follow up to previous post - I have fitted a set of new shoes which has sorted the problem for now! During the fitting process I decided to remove the cylinder pistons to clean and lubricate them and to my surprise one of the cylinders was different to the others in that it had a piston with a groove and seal fitted rather than the separate piston and seal in the others. The odd one out looked the same externally and while I did'nt measure the piston, it must be the same as the car pulls up strongly and straight. Were there two types of cylinder available?
Another fix for the lack of adjustment occurred to me while working on the brakes - weld a shim on to the base of the mask!!

Cylinder differences are probably due to different manufacturer, providing it is the same size as the others it shouldn't be a problem, just a bit unusual ... I would tend to fit a complete set of four and expect when I buy four that they are all the same .... probably doesn't matter. Your other problem, temporarily resolved .... you may run out of adjustment later and be where you were earlier, I would get the larger adjusters, what are they ... 12 quid so not hugely expensive. Welding bits on and shimming here and there may work but not recommended. I recently helped a friend with front brakes on his minor and all sorts of "shims" fell all over the floor as we dismantled his brakes, one "shim" was worn where it had tried to escape and ended up wearing on the drum surface ... bad practice.

The cheap "pattern" aftermarket cylinders have a seal on the piston. The original Lockheed ones do not. I have had a bad experience with new pattern cylinders leaking and would not recommend buying them. Once is certainly enough for me. The situation is confused by sellers boxing these cheap pattern parts in boxes labelled "Borg & Beck" and "Unipart" which once meant good OE quality but doesn't any more.

Strictly, it is bad practice but I have done this for a number of years on my rear brakes for the reason you point out. The front brakes have been converted to disks. I have never had any problems.

I was thinking about posting a new thread but checked the Forum first - my Problem it seems is not new.

The rear Brakes on my 69 Traveller also have run out of adjustment. I thought that the existing adjusters were simply worn but on Fitting new ones, there is no Change. The shoes are mintex and hardly worn. I have a new spare brake drum so I installed that temporarily to see if it made a difference. It did not.

The rear brake cylinders are indeed after market - could that be the cause?

My rear adjusters are fully adjusted out and just about move the brake shoes into the correct position. I'm thinking that the shoes will get a dab of tig weld when they need further adjustment.

There are different size adjusters (snail cams) that vary between cars but can look very similar. It's unlikely, but just possible, that yours are the wroing ones, biot the old and the new - not all suppliers know what they are selling!.

On the topic of oversize snail cams - I see ESM do a version that they state requires the drum to be skimmed.

I wonder if these might solve my problem of running out of adjustment with the Wolseley 1500 brakes?

I will today try to weld/braze a distance Piece to the underside of the old adjusters I recently replaced. Probably 4 to 5mm will suffice I surmise and see what that does.

When the shoes are not properly adjusted, the handbrake Needs excessive travel to work properly so I am looking to cure this.

I'm sure you know, but for the benefit of others, the handbrake cable length can be adjusted using the nuts inside the car, and this can eliminate slack; BUT it should be done only when the shoes have been correctly adjusted in the first place - the cable must have some free play when adjusting the brakes. The lever should give 4-5 clicks before the handbrake is fully on.

I would suggest that if you have got to fit a spacer of 4mm - 5mm thickness then there is something seriously wrong with the set up.

This occured to me later as well.

I have brazed a ca. 2,5 mm steel Piece on to the underside of the adjuster. Now it works really well. A few clicks starting from Zero and the brake drum is locked. Release one click and it turns freely.

Now for the handbrake.....