49 chevy 3600 front Drums

[mytruck1949]

ok I have looked around a bit and couldn't find anything on what I have a question about. So here we go.

49 chevy 3600 front drum breaks. I installed new wheel cylinders pulled the and repacked the bearings. So now re-assembling and having issue with adjusting the wheel cyclinder.

So there is a spring that goes from top inside corners of the shoes. I am assuming this spring is to hold the shoes tight against the cyclinder. Then you adjust for wheel drag. Basically the spring does not pull tight, not like other brakes. With this I adjust the wheel cyclinder out but then I get to much drag.

What am I missing?

[dwcsr]

How do you know the spring doesn't pull tight? how much drag it to much?

Usually I adjust the shoes until the wheel can't turn then back off till it does. Do that on both shoes. you may want to invest in a brake shoe gage so you can adjust them with the drum off and see what the spring is or isn't doing.

http://www.mytoolstore.com/kd/kdbrak09.html its almost a must for these old brake systems.

[mytruck1949]

Thanks for the reply. So what is happening is the spring isn't pulling tight enough to hold the ends on the wheel cyclinder. When I extend the cylinder pins out so there is pull on the spring it is too wide. These are brand new springs from LMC too.

[dwcsr]

Sounds like they got you the wrong ones. Did they match up to the originals?

[mytruck1949]

I will double check the order and their catalog. Thanks

[dwcsr]

I've got a3600 here with the brakes still on it. If I get time tomorrow I'll measure them.

[mytruck1949]

Update So after doing some internet searching I came across a guy that had a 3600 with pictures of his front brakes. So even though my truck had the spring on the most upper inside holes of the brake shoes, which was not far enough apart to have pull on the spring, that the spring placement was holes where the next ones down the shoes. So this gave the pull towards the wheel cylinder.

Thanks for the responses.