Amazon: New (to me) 1963 Volvo 122

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Volvo_133

Hi Alan,
Apart from the cylinder leak, I can see 3 other issues in your pictures to address when you rebuild the brakes.
The front and rear shoe are in the incorrect location in the drum and need swapping front to back.
The bottom spring is better the other way round (the straight bit without coils) to the rear. This prevents the H brake arm fouling on the spring when operating the H brake.
The long woodruff key on the halfshaft should be fitted with the tapered end facing down and also facing inwards towards the diff.
Have a look at various videos showing the correct assembly.
You are going to notice a vast difference in braking power with dry shoes fitted the correct way round.
Chris

I remembered something the PO told me when I bought the motor car (2 weeks ago) Chris. He had the rear wheel bearings changed by a garage in 2009 (when he bought the motor car)and had suspected something was not quite right since.

As you have pointed out (and thank you for that, I may not have noticed if you had not mentioned it), the shoes are back to front so the leading edges are where the trailing edges should be. I noticed from the MoT history that the motor car had issues with the rear brakes being imbalanced going back to 2012, which supports my theory. This is what the brakes are supposed to look like:



... so much for paying garage services to do jobs wrong. The woodruff key was also inserted incorrectly.

The rear brakes will be assembled correctly for the first time in 13 years by the end of this week. Thank you for your help, this forum really is invaluable.

Alan