Self Adj To Manual Adj Drums

[Dave Gantz]

Originally Posted by Steve Polhill

Please tell me this is an April fools joke...LOL

No Steve, sorry.
It was a common thing back "in the day". It kept the brakes from dragging when the suspension stretched or squatted on launch, plus of course, from tightening up in general.
I'm building a '71 street/strip Duster, retro to the late 70's, early 80's. It's part of the build.
I guess now days, most cars are disc all around.

[Rory McNeil]

Not sure when Ford switched to self adjusting brakes, but for certain my 57,8,&9 Ford cars came with 9" rear ends with manual adjusters. The starwheel on the manual adjuster has much larger, wider teeth, and a straight spring that connects the 2 shoes together at the bottom, and also rides on top of the starwheel, to prevent the starwheel from moving on its own. Another option is what I did with my 85 Mustang Stockers 8.8" . It had C Clip eliminators, which took up a lot of space, so what I did was trim down the female end of the adjuster, to allow a fine thread nut to act as a jam nut while maintaining the original length of the adjuster.

[Mark Yacavone]

I haven't seen them in years. Imagine walking into the 'Zone and asking a 19 yo chick?

I just use the same cross spring, hole to hole. It'll bite down on one of the spring turns but not gonna let it move.

[Dave Gantz]

Originally Posted by Mark Yacavone

I haven't seen them in years. Imagine walking into the 'Zone and asking a 19 yo chick?

Lol, I stopped having birthdays, but maybe the 19 yo would be on to me?

[Ralph A Powell]

1962 was the change!

Originally Posted by Rory McNeil

Not sure when Ford switched to self adjusting brakes, but for certain my 57,8,&9 Ford cars came with 9" rear ends with manual adjusters. The starwheel on the manual adjuster has much larger, wider teeth, and a straight spring that connects the 2 shoes together at the bottom, and also rides on top of the starwheel, to prevent the starwheel from moving on its own. Another option is what I did with my 85 Mustang Stockers 8.8" . It had C Clip eliminators, which took up a lot of space, so what I did was trim down the female end of the adjuster, to allow a fine thread nut to act as a jam nut while maintaining the original length of the adjuster.

[Dave Gantz]

I have it back together.

The manual star adjusters were a bit too long, but the manual adjusting springs work. I used the original auto adjusting star wheel with them. The manual springs keep the adjusters from turning on their own.

I found a return spring in the kit that replaced the short return spring that was used with the auto adjust set up.

There are two before and two after pictures. The after also shows the E- brake hardware removed.

They all got turned 90* somehow.