Car pulls to left when braking

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1BadDodge71

1BadDodge71

FABO Rice Hater
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Ok,i replaced the front brakes on my 72 Duster.They are still the 9 inch drums,replaced the shoes,and had the drums resurfaced.I was told this was a braking issue and the car rides pretty straight until I brake,then the wheel wants to jerk to the left.Is there a way I need to adjust these?Its been awhile since I messed with front drums.If this helps,I almost need to leave the adjusting star on the left front wheel almost really loosein order to even put the drum on.Any help would be great :read2:
 
mine do too. i dont know if its that big of a deal or not. mine dont really pull that bad, and only under heavy breaking (downhill towards a stop light.)
 
Adjust your front right brake up, it ain't doing it's job. Adjust up to the point where you can just feel them dragging, with wheel off the ground of course.
 
Make sure you put the shoes on correctly, if they`re reversed it may cause them to stick which could result in the car pulling to that side.
 
A few things to check:
1. Check the tire pressures in the front. Even 5-8 psi can make it pull one way or another.
2. Check the adjustments in the brakes.
 
If the other suggestions dont work, check the hydraulic hose on the right wheel (If it has one). If the rubber gets weak, it can balloon under hard pressure, causing loss of pressure. It may be getting ready to blow. I had a car do this once. You couldnt see anything wrong with the hose, but as soon as I changed it, everything worked fine.
 
if the other stuff does not work make sure shoes or clean lighty sand them so they are clean no greese hand prints and make sure drum is clean too. no leaky seal.
 
While you're checking all the above also check the play in the wheel bearings. One side being too loose and the other being too tight can cause such a situation.
 
ALso, remember that if you are pulling to the left, your left brake is working better than your right brake. So make sure that your left brake is not adjusted up too high.

Just curious, did your brakes do this before you did all of the original brake work, or after you did it?
 
could be any thing. check everything starting witht he easiest first. the adjustment. could also be the wheels cyl. or the rubber brake hose.

whatever you do get them right, its a major safety concern no matter how slight it pulls. i know a guy that his car always pulled to one side and he had to panic stop one day because someone pulled out in front of him, well it pulled so hard in the panic stop that the wheel was ripped from his hand and the car turned right into a pole. totaled the car and hurt a couple passengers. lucky none were killed. he knew they pulled slightly when stopping and pulled a little harder when on them hard but never expected it to do what it did. he was driving a long time with it pulling like that. was never too bad. under a normal stop it was easily controlled. once he really had to slam them on it was all over with. brakes is no area to mess around with.
 
Check wheel cylinder it may be partly seized and not retrackting all the way causing it to come out to far and giving to much braking
 
Where there is a cable operated adjust paw, the cable guide has a short neck on the backside to locate it centered in its location. If that cable guide isn't proper you could have only one adjuster operating properly.
I know of one case where a guy put one side togeter wrong and the father he went the worse the brakes became.
Then there was another car that suddenly started pulling left when braking and I found the outer half of the strut rod bushing had fell off. That will give a clunk noise with the hard jerk to one side. Good luck
 
Listen to abodyjoe, I had a 70 Cutlass that use to pull to the right a bit when braking, I figured it was no big deal, car still stopped and it wasn't pulling huge. One day I had too slam the brakes on, car pulled so hard it mounted the curb and came to a stop on the lawn in front of some company, lucky it was a commerical area and not a residental.
 
Check your front strut rod bushings. If they go bad they can cause the front end to pull one way or the other no matter what the brakes are doing. I had bad ones on my old 67 Cuda and it drove me nuts till I replaced them with Moog parts. You probably also know the 9" brakes are worthless. They only sort of slow down the car. You ought to at least upgrade to 10" drums.
 
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