VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 49 Chevy, pulls left when braking

49 Chevy Brakes ... car pulls hard left when brakes applied. Car is recent purchase. All brakes appear new. All assembly appears proper, no grease/oil on pads or drums. Front drums measure 11.015 and appear in good condition. The aft side piston on the RF wheel was stuck; rebuilt wheel cylinder and bled. Adjusted all brakes. Plan to replace flexible brake lines (they could be original).

Any other thoughts on cause or diagnosis?

Remove left front drum and sand lining surface and drum. Even tough it looks OK the lining may be glazed.
Jack-up front end and spin right wheel - have some one step on brake pedal to see if brake is being applied.

Have jacked /spun both wheels and both stop similarly when brakes applied. Will try other suggestion, Thanks

Rab,
Does it get better after you have driven it a ways and had several opportunities to apply the brakes?

If it gets no better, then it is probably the right front not performing as designed.

If it gets better, it is probably the left hand shoe having become wet at some point with brake fluid.

I'm really not sure and my answer is a WAG. There are others on here that will probably offer much better analysis and advice.
Good luck with it.
Charlie

BTW: Did you get both front wheels adjusted to shut down status and then back off about five clicks. That way the shoes will travel about the same distance before friction occurs. The left may be leading the right in application.

Perhaps the rear brakes??

Ordinarily that would be your braking out of adjustment...but if these are juice brakes...kinda rules that out.

Replace rubber lines..could be somewhat plugged....Virg

You might bleed all 4 wheels again?

Thanks to all for the ideas. Have ordered new brake lines just in case one is blocked. Will also clean all parts and swap left to right to see if problem follows.

With hydraulic brakes, pretty much the only thing that makes them pull is brake fluid or grease on the shoes. Could be front or back on the side to which it pulls. You say there is no grease or fluid on the shoes, but are you sure? If they are saturated but cleaned up, they can look pretty good.

While adjustment may cause one or more shoes to make contact before the others, they don't get enough pressure on them to do anything until all of the shoes are touching, and they get the same amount of pressure; because that's how hydraulics work.

Air in the system mainly just gives you a soft pedal as the air compresses. If after you have pumped the brakes and compressed the air and it again goes down there is a leak somewhere. If there is no external leakage, it is most likely leaking inside the master cylinder. But, again, that would not make the brakes pull to one side. If you have bled the brakes and gotten fluid out of all wheel cylinders, it means that there is no blockage. But replacing those old hoses IS a good idea.

It could also be a bad wheel bearing that reacts when the pressure of braking hits it.

Hi,
Just a note of thanks for all who provided input and to Bob Adler (bobadler@nycap.rr.com) for his incites as well. The problem has been resolved but I'm not sure how / why. I was going very slow trying one incremental thing at a time. Finally I swapped brakes left to right side, cleaned the backing plates and added a bit of lube at contact points, and cleaned shoes and drums with brake clean. (Had done the right side before as I thought it was the culprit). Reassembled, re adjusted and everything worked fine

Glad you got it worked out.
Charlie