Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:03:49 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Cockeyed Parking Brake Equalizer
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I must be wierd.
I have almost zero problems or issues with vanagon rear brakes.
granted, the shoes can wear out more at the top.
granted, one shoe wears more than the other.
there is a trick about adding washers at the bottom of where the shoes mount
to make full contact across the whole shoe occur better.
I have not ever bothered to do that myself.
that part is a bit 'german minded theoretical' and is a little weak out in
the real world of grit, grime, and neglect.
A few cars have eccentrics at the pivoting end of the shoe....so wear is
spread more evenly ..
so larger diameter drum ( from turing it , or wear ) can be accomodated.
also...we are not 'arcing shoes' anymore.
in the say .....up to the 70's....you'd measure inside diamter of the drum,
then 'arc' ...remove material from the new brake shoe face to make it
precisely same curvature of the drum.
that is not done anymore due to concerns about the toxic brake dust that
process generates.
so there is inherantly some slight mismatch between shoe and brake drum
curvature ..
unless starting out with new drums and new OE grade shoes I imagine.
in practice.........I'm easy on brakes...mine just don't wear very much.
They barely wear at all.
And I use 'em a little harder now and then intentionally.
the privious design, fwiw....the manual adjusters were at the bottom of the
shoe..
wheel cylinder at the top ..so you adjusted the bottom of the shoes out to
nearly contacting the drum ...so you got very even and well spread out
shoe-drum contact.
Totally non-self adjusting though ..and I always hated adjusting VW drum
brake star adjusters..
those things can get SO stuck it's awful.
And early bug ....those brakes should get adjusted every 5,000 miles...
maybe even as often as you were suppossed to adjust the valves...every 3,000
miles.
in the 70's we used to , on a Bug ..
adjust valves, replace valve cover gaskets, check and tweak points if
neccessary, lube points cam, adjsut idle and mixture ..and maybe change the
oil too for only 20 bucks sometiemes ! Maybe 25 with oil change.
How did we even make a living doing that !?
anyway ....as I wrote earlier, I go into the rear brakes and inspect, empty
out brake dust ..
and sometimes I 'might' tweak up the self-adjusters just a bit, which is not
normally done, and maybe shouldn't be done even , so be careful if you think
you might want to do that ..
but ..they adjust just fine. Need to figure out which way to turn them ..
used to be on old vw adjsuters it was 'handle up tightens up'..
forget what it is on vanagons..I just look at the thread every time and
think...ok, turn the star this way..that will screw it that way, adjusting
the shoes out some.
oh yeah...don't tell anyone !! ....sometimes if everthing is really kosher
looking, and it's my own van..I might replace just the one worn shoe ..
but I also ....
lube the points on the backing plate where the shoes slide...
I lube under the hold-down spring ...with copper anti-seize compound, just a
tiny bit.
I lube with copper anti-seize compound the ends of the shoes where the sit
in aa grooove and move a tiny bit there I make sure the self-adjuster is
freely turning/screwing ...
I change the brake fluid to that wheel.....
details details..it is NOT just replacing parts.
The parts themselves are Almost Incidental in getting the results I get in
vanagons.
Here's a trick on adjusting the self-adjusters...you adjust it out, and keep
doing that until the drum just fits over, then, with drum on, yank on the
parking brake handle to settle the shoes more, then tweak the adjuster again
...do that a few times ...just make sure there is no real drag on the drum
when done.
but they work fine.
On my own van I might attend to this once every two years.
and as I said....brakes hardly where on my vehicles.
here's another way you can look at it ..
every time you step on the brakes...you're wasting fuel.
Heck, I've seen people stomp on their brakes going uphill !
and except in racing ...that is just plain wasting fuel and brakes even.
it's not practical to drive never touching the brakes of course..
but you can sure drive so you 'go well' ...but only use 'just the right
amount of energy needed to get what you need or want' ...
one sure sign of Mastery to me is ..
using just the amount of energy or force needed, and no more.
If I'm performance driving ..and I can and do drive very fast, smoothy, and
gently on the equipment .....if performance driving sure ..then it's on the
power, off the power sand braking, then back on the power ..
but for nice driving in the real world..
it's accelerate at a reasonable rate...
don't accelerate more than you need to ..like anticipate ...
and anticiapte need to brake...and start slowing down early. Many people
are really clumsy drivers that are brutal on the equipment. And apparantly,
no body really cares how much fuel they burn ....
like idling diesel engines while they talk on the cell phone..
or hot rods with horrible emissions that are 30 years old and get 12 mpg, or
giant pick ups used as single person cars ( the norm where I live ) that
get at best 15 mpg ....no body really cares I don't think.
heck..
americans just throw away jillions of gallons of fuel every day just by
following too closely.
it's stupid, but humans are.
sorry....that was just about being rough on things and wasting fuel..
but vanogon rear brakes...
I suppose they could be better ...but I find that with just simple car eand
understanding and some clever tweaks and attetention to detail..
the work pretty well overall, for what they are, put it that way.
it's in the details kids. The Details.
( and 20 or 25 years ago my mind could not see the details like it can now,
fwiw )
Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hanson" <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: Cockeyed Parking Brake Equalizer
> I am gonna draw the wrath of The True Believers with this comment but
> here
> goes anyway...The rear brakes on Vanagons are funky.
>
> Not much on them works really right...Oh, they work good enough. When
> everything is exactly as it came from the factory and brand new, they may
> have even worked ok. They do help stop our vans sometimes..
>
> But the adjustments, the self adjusting, the E-brake equalizer cables, the
> actuating lever inside, the shoes and drums.... all that seems to always
> not
> work "just right".. They get some braking done despite all that...but when
> you attempt to work with all the components...well, I for one find them
> 'in-elegant' "Funky, for a more technical term..
>
> Like your 'equalizer bar'....Mine, too, is not square to the cable, but if
> you look at it closely, it's 'out of whack' from the factory
> anyhow...Asymmetrical as designed. Still works, but you can't get it
> right... The brake shoes wear out on one end and don't even touch on the
> other...Wassup with that, Fritz and Franz? (the Engineer guys who musta
> been
> at the Hofbrau House when they designed some parts of the Vanagon)?
> Couldn't you come up with a brake set-up that actually worked 'right'? If
> the whole shoe was actually braking, the rear brakes could have been about
> 1/3 the size of what we have and still supplied the same stopping power...
>
> Those funky little clips that are supposed to make the brakes
> self-adjusting....You will probably discover them when you attempt to
> adjust
> your brake shoes...They, too, work.....sort of, sometimes. But oh so
> cheezy...
>
> We do get stopped by those brakes...But they certainly aren't one of the
> better designed features of a Vanagon..
>
> Don Hanson
>
> On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" <
> camping.elliott@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Jay!
>>
>> Jim Felder wrote, "I would start by jacking up the wheels, popping the
>> little rubber cover off the adjuster hole in the backing plate,..."
>>
>> Where be that rubber cover on the backing plate? Does Bentleys have a
>> picture?
>>
>> And, with the tire off the ground, the brake off, and the (automatic)
>> transmission in Neutral, is it normal for the tire to not spin freely,
>> but have some drag?
>>
>>
>> --
>> Rocky J Squirrel
>> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
>> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
>> Bend, OR
>> KG6RCR
>>
>>
>>
>> Jay lefstein wrote:
>>
>>> ok, so yeah they show a funky tool ... I work at a shop that was a vw
>>> dealer from the 50's till 2003... we don't have or use that tool... may
>>> have had it long before i worked there.. i use a rather short flat
>>> screwdriver..
>>>
>>> jack on side of the van up till the wheel will spin ( chock the front
>>> wheels first ) .. now adjust till it's tight and then 2 click s back (
>>> the wheel should seem slow but free )
>>>
>>> now do this on the other side...
>>>
>>> this is simple when you have done it but takes patients and trial and
>>> error when doing it your first time... sorry my description is so poor.
>>> i hope it helps
>>>
>>> ps, this does not guarantee your equaliser will be perfectly straight ..
>>> mine isn't .... are you sure you don't have a bigger brake problem? have
>>> you taken a drum off? maybe you have a had a sticking P/brake cable?
>>>
>>> brakes are easy once you have done them with someone who knows... i did
>>> them from the bently first time and it worked but now after seeing a guy
>>> do them, who has been doing them since vanagons existed i can do it
>>> better ;)
>>>
>>> good luck
>>> J
>>> On 10-Jul-10, at 10:22 AM, Mike Rocket J Squirrel wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm looking at Bentley's and what I see is the top photo on 46.9 which
>>>> looks like there has been some disassembly done, using more than a
>>>> screwdriver, it seems. Am I not seeing the e-z way to adjust the
>>>> brakes?
>>>>
>>>> And, is adjusting the brakes how one gets that equalizer piece
>>>> uncockeyed?
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Rocky J Squirrel
>>>> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
>>>> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
>>>> Bend, OR
>>>> KG6RCR
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jay lefstein wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> you don't have a small / med flat screw driver? thats all it takes ;)
>>>>> On 10-Jul-10, at 9:59 AM, Mike Rocket J Squirrel wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Given that my parking brake doesn't do a whole lot, I climbed under
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> van to take some slack out of the linkage. I stopped when I saw that
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> equalizer (Bentleys 46.11) is at quite an angle, not at a right
>>>>>> angle to
>>>>>> the centerline of the van as I expected. I'm not sure what this
>>>>>> means. I
>>>>>> don't have the tools to adjust the brakes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Rocky J Squirrel
>>>>>> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
>>>>>> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
>>>>>> Bend, OR
>>>>>> KG6RCR
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
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