Rear brake drum question, can I remove self adjusting mechanism in rear drum brake?

I've been having problems with my rear brakes and its driving me crazy. I can't ever get both the rear self adjusting mechanisms to work in unison, either the left or the right brake does'nt adjust and it messes up the balance of the car under braking (pulling left or right ect). The partial pulley that the cable runs over always seems to pop out of the hole in the brake shoe. I have replaced everything the springs, partial pulleys, cables, shoes, self adjusting mechanism, everything and it always happens. So I was wondering if anyone has ever removed the self adjusting mechanisms all together or is there some kind of magical trick to get the partial pulleys to stay seated in the brake shoe? I seem to adjust the brakes more often now than I would have to if the brakes were'nt self adjusting. Anyway I just wanted some advice or suggestions on my problem before I go and start removing things.

Oh and if anyone has a rear brake disk conversion kit for sale that is'nt 500-600 dollars I'd be very very very interested.

Oh and this is a 1997 cherokee sport, two door, manual transmission, 4.0 liter, without antilock brakes.

thanks,
Will

I fail to understand how it can "pop out". The spring holds it in.

http://go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoRearDrums1.htm

If you swap the adjusters side to side, they "adjust" out of adjustment. If you have a mismatched set(2 left or 2 right), 1 side will work, and the other will always go out of adjustment.

To do away with them, remove the cables and leave the adjusters.(Not recommended, but it will work.) The auto-adjusters are probably mis-assembled. Best bet is figure out whats wrong and fix them.

I did'nt explain well, the spring does hold it in, but the partial pulley does'nt stay completely seated in the hole of the brake shoe. It seems like once there is a little tension on the cable, the cable pulls the partial pulley away from the shoe causing the partial pulley to slide slightly away from the shoe down the end of the spring toward the center of the brake assembly. This little bit of clearance away from the shoe causes the cable to slack up a little bit allowing the wratchet to pull away from the adjustment bar at the bottom of the brake shoes. I hope I'm explaining this well, but I really need to know if it's ok to remove the self adjusting stuff like the cable, partial pulley, and maybe the wratchet lock(not the adjusting bar). Thanks for the link though.

I'll double check everything, thanks for the link. I really don't know why this is happening, its the first time I've ever had this happen. Maybe I have the wrong partial pulleys or something, who knows.

thanks again,
Will

I've had that popping out problem too, on aftermarket parts kits. The pressed boss on the pivot (or partial pulley or whatever it's really called) just isn't deep enough to stay in. The spring holds it more or less in place, but not enough to operate the adjuster.

Sometimes if you can get it to stay while you install the spring, it will hold together. You might try taking a small tool like a phillips screwdriver, and expanding the boss enough so that it sticks better in the hole in the shoe.

The only real solution to this problem is to get a better quality partial pulley with a boss that goes through the full depth of the shoe. But I have no smart answer for where you can get such a thing, since the usual parts-store Wagner kits don't have it.

If you are just plain sick of the self-adjusting brakes, you can leave the cable out. The rest of the parts can stay in, and you just manually adjust as needed. Or make sure that both partial pulleys are unseated in the same way. As you've already found, they won't adjust themselves then.

Adding to what matthew said about the part quality of the cable guides, I had a hell of time getting mine to seat as well

not only was the pressed-in boss too shallow, the whole guide stamping was warped. It would never lay flat enough on the shoe to stay seated.

so i have the original 1992 guides on my jeep.
To test them I layed them on my vice jaws, and they layed flat, the Raybestos (china) parts teetered.

I almost left mine off too.
When I do the 2000 brakes I'm getting OE drum brake parts, at least on the adjusters.

The aftermarket star wheel is soft as butter too, made to strip out.

The cables I got from AZ in my parts kits were longer than stock, and when I pulled the drums off, the driver's side bar that normally contacts the star wheel wasn't anywhere near making contact. I had to mix and match old and new parts, and do some tweaking to make anything work. One of these days- rear discs.

Wilbur said:

I did'nt explain well, the spring does hold it in, but the partial pulley does'nt stay completely seated in the hole of the brake shoe. It seems like once there is a little tension on the cable, the cable pulls the partial pulley away from the shoe causing the partial pulley to slide slightly away from the shoe down the end of the spring toward the center of the brake assembly. This little bit of clearance away from the shoe causes the cable to slack up a little bit allowing the wratchet to pull away from the adjustment bar at the bottom of the brake shoes. I hope I'm explaining this well, but I really need to know if it's ok to remove the self adjusting stuff like the cable, partial pulley, and maybe the wratchet lock(not the adjusting bar). Thanks for the link though.

Click to expand...

Hallo. I had the same problem with my adjusting cables. They stucked between the brake shoe and the cable guide. So I solved the problem to poprived the cable guide against the brake shoe.
When I have to renew the brakeshoes, i need also new cableguides.:laugh:

p.s. both of the adjusting wheels on my rig are not working properly.

'92 XJ 31"BFG Muds 3"BB

when i redone my rar shoes and hardware i had the same problem with the cable guide not wanting to seat, all the way, i ended up brasing them to the shoe, it only takes a very little "tack" to hold them in place been over a year with no problems, havent had to readjust he rear shoe yet hth iirc didnt some of t he ford vehicles use a cable guide that t he tabs went through the shoe and were bent over to hold them inplace?

Thanks for everyones input, least now I know that I'm not the only one with this problem. I went back and mixed and matched old parts with new ones and now hopefully I think I have a combination that works. The cable guides I had were not flat so I kinda had to bend them until they layed correctly on the shoe. So anyway will see how long they last. After dealing with this I will pay more attention at the junkyard for parts to do the disk conversion.

thanks,
Will