seattle620 Posted December 15, 2017 Report Share Posted December 15, 2017 Hi, New to the Ratsun board! I have a 1973 Datsun 620 pickup. I had the brakes done about 6 years ago, but drive the truck under 500 miles a year. The brakes work well except the when i am on an upward incline, when it rolls backwards, it hard to stop. I have to pump the brakes and keep the pedal down to the floor in order to keep rolling backwards. Going forward and stopping has never been a issue, it's just when it's rolling backwards. Any suggestions on what may be the issue? thanks! Jay Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted December 15, 2017 Report Share Posted December 15, 2017 Hi Jay, welcome to Ratsun. Well it's normal for the brakes to work better when moving forward than backwards. This is from the special placement of the leading and trailing brake shoe linings in relation to the wheel cylinder. About all I can recommend is adjusting all four corners of your brakes to remove any excess play from normal wear. Adjust and spin the wheel by hand till there is drag from the shoes rubbing the drum. Pump the brakes several times to center the wheel cylinder and check again. Be sure to loosen the E brake first before adjusting and then don't forget the re-adjust the E brake last thing when done. Have a care. I find that brakes very slowly loose they ability to stop as the linings wear and you can get very used to pushing harder to stop. When done, you may be pleasantly surprised that the brakes work much better with less effort than before. 1 Quote Link to comment
Roadster-ka Posted December 16, 2017 Report Share Posted December 16, 2017 When these trucks were new, we adjusted brakes every 3000 miles. Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted December 16, 2017 Report Share Posted December 16, 2017 For peak braking action very much so yes! The '78 620 was the first year front disc brakes were used, eliminating any need for adjustment. Self adjusting rear brakes were introduced in Dec. '81 or about half way through the '82 model year. 1 Quote Link to comment
flatcat19 Posted December 16, 2017 Report Share Posted December 16, 2017 If you have to pump to get a solid pedal, you are out of adjustment. I'm with everyone above, brakes work better moving forward. Rolling backwards does not initially engage the leading brake shoes. And you have 4 wheel drums...nothing is engaging as you start to roll backwards. Quote Link to comment
seattle620 Posted December 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2017 thanks everyone for the responses! much appreciated! Quote Link to comment
distributorguy Posted December 21, 2017 Report Share Posted December 21, 2017 Back brakes work great when rolling backward, so if I were you, I'd focus my attention there. Adjust, pump the pedal, adjust, pump the pedal, repeat until they're as tight as you dare drive on. Also bleed the fluid until you get fresh coming out the rear ports. The pedal will feel spongy if there's a lot of water and rust in the fluid. Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted December 21, 2017 Report Share Posted December 21, 2017 They should work best moving the most common direction.... forward. If they work better moving backwards you have the leading and trailing shoes swapped. 1 Quote Link to comment
tr8er Posted December 21, 2017 Report Share Posted December 21, 2017 Or your chair is backwards 1 Quote Link to comment
distributorguy Posted December 26, 2017 Report Share Posted December 26, 2017 Have you seen a new set of shoes recently? They're all the same. Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted December 26, 2017 Report Share Posted December 26, 2017 What new cars.... or '73 620??? 620 and all Datsuns have to be on correctly facing.. Quote Link to comment
wayno Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 What he means is the lining on the shoes is the same on both sides now, there is no shorter side, I have also noticed this. Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 Picked up some shoes at Canby on the cheap late Sunday when no one wanted to load and take them home. Put them on 2 years ago. They were the old stye. Not likely to need new ones for a while. The linings are both the same length, just 'clocked' differently on the shoe. They had LEADING SHOE on two of them Quote Link to comment
distributorguy Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 Mike, its not that way anymore. I just installed 2 different brand sets on 2 620s over the last few months. Rear brakes generally work better when backing up. Its a quick trick I've used over the years to diagnose an issue with dragging rear brakes (rusted E-brake cable). You feel it more in reverse. Quote Link to comment
G-Duax Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 They should work best moving the most common direction.... forward. Every car I've ever owned, the brakes were like this. Sometimes I forget to release the parking brake, and could back out of my driveway just fine, but when trying to move forward, arg ! Look, see that I was being a retard, release the parking brake, and be on my merry way. Something to check, the adjuster assembly has to free float for everything to work. I'm thinking the adjusters are frozen up due to little use. Might be something to look at. Quote Link to comment
distributorguy Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 Maybe the stuck cable is why I find it that way? Already binding so they grab first? I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the same length pad material applied to all 620 brake shoes. Odd for sure. And yes, I understand the concept of a "leading shoe" but is there ever a leading shoe? The drum spins in a circle. How does it know which shoe leads when hydraulic pressure moves both equally? :angel: Quote Link to comment
G-Duax Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 I think the 'leading shoe' is the one that the wheel cylinder pushes on first, then it pushes o the floating adjuster, that in turn pushes on the 'trailing shoe' It's all BS though, drums just are a carry over from 18th century wagon brakes. Even at their height of development, Nascar, with segmented shoes, and fins, and big cooling ducts, they were still only good for a couple of laps. Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 Mike, its not that way anymore. I just installed 2 different brand sets on 2 620s over the last few months. Rear brakes generally work better when backing up. Its a quick trick I've used over the years to diagnose an issue with dragging rear brakes (rusted E-brake cable). You feel it more in reverse. No argument here, I just don't see why this has changed. Historically there is free servo action in the forward direction. When set right, the dominant (forward) direction gets an added boost in braking action over reverse. Simply put the shoe that applies braking in the same direction as the motion of the drum is the leading shoe. The shoe that operates towards the moving drum is the trailing shoe. The lining on the leading shoe should be farthest from the wheel cylinder and closest to the pivot point at the bottom. This point has the maximum leverage and servo action. OLD SHOES (front to right) NEW SHOES (front to right) Quote Link to comment
wayno Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 I guess I have been taking about rear brakes, I thought we all were talking about rear drum brakes, I don't have any front drum brakes on anything anymore. Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 The pre '78s were all drum brake but the leading and trailing shoes still apply for rear only vehicles. It's like free assist when stopping. Quote Link to comment
DanielC Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 Hydraulic pressure is equally applied to both shoes. However, forward rotation wedges the shoes tighter to the drum. When going backwards, the rotation tends to push the shoes away from the drum. This effect is used on boat trailers with surge (drum) brakes that have a trailer brake master cylinder in the trailer coupler, so you can back the trailer even though reverse motion is applying the trailer brakes. If a boat trailer has disk brakes, there has to be a solenoid to release hydraulic pressure back into the trailer master cylinder to back a disk brake boat trailer. Quote Link to comment
distributorguy Posted December 27, 2017 Report Share Posted December 27, 2017 I store boats. I cannot back up a boat/trailer with my tractor's 3-point using surge trailer brakes. Period. Unless I lock them out by preventing the tongue from applying them. Quote Link to comment
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