We have an Abbey Iona of 1995 vintage and have noticed when braking at the end of a journey, on local roads, the 'van brakes squeal when stopping. Our service man checked them out and found nothing untoward with them. Many years ago, when cars had brake shoes rather than pads, a squeal from them was cured by stomping on the pedal a few times to 'bed them in'. I am rather reluctant to try that when towing, for all sorts of reasons. Any suggestions?
When you get a glass and rub your finger around the rim there is grip between the finger and glass but if you dip your finger in water and do the same then a high pitch squeal will be evident. This is because there is no grip and squealing brakes are acting in exactly the same manner. If the brake drums were thoroughly brushed out then the problem is that the brake shoe surfaces have glazed which result is poor grip causing the squeal.
Your service man obviously found nothing wrong which is right because a lot of modern teachings these days are based on computerised technology and basic visible inspections but this is down to years of mechanical engineering experience.
The solution is to take off the brake adjustment, removed the drums and then clean the brake surfaces with some fine sandpaper. However, the rubbing action should be opposite the grain so basically it's rubbing the shoes from front to back with sandpaper on the end of a file to maintain the straightness. When finished make sure you thoroughly clean out any remaining dust, refit the brake drums and finally adjust the brake shoes.
The answer does seem to be removing glaze from the shoes. The only problem seems to be replacing the 'one shot' Alko hub nut and tightening to the required torque setting. My wrench only goes to 150 ft lbs. Nowhere near that required.
Yes that's correct as a standard torque wrench is inadequate for the job and the specialist tool required is expensive and can cost nearly as much as a service itself.
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Topic: Squealing brakes
