Rear brake lock-up

[Geoffrey Lord]

Hi,

Has anyone a fix for the self locking rear brake on my '53 VB plunger? I can apply the brake quite hard and it's fine but then other times a touch on the brake pedal to scrub off a little speed and the whole shebang locks and the lever is sucked from under my foot. Quite scary! I have tried stronger shoe springs and different settings of the conical adjuster, I have even tried an additional, temporary return spring on the lever itself.

Is shoe material a factor? I have ones with the embedded brass (?) elements.

[Pete.Silson]

Have you got a downward pointing brake arm (like the first picture)?

If so, then this is a well known problem and can only really be cured by changing to an upward pointing brake arm.

I am fairly sure both the pictures above are of 1953 Anstey Ariels.

Pete

[Geoffrey Lord]

OK, That is interesting! Yes, it is downward pointing. I wonder why changing to upward pointing works?

Geoff

[Vincent.vanGinneke]

The combi of the plunger springing and the direction the cam on the lever pushes the shoes makes for a self servo action when the rear brake is applied.
A factory mistake !
Routing the rod with the arm pointing up is a bit difficult, some models used a cable after this was found out and you need abutments for that I think only the later SQ4's had that.

[Geoffrey Lord]

Thanks for that, it all makes sense now. I will work out a fix.

Cheers