Our Touring Past

When I first purchased the Sunliner I pulled the wheels off and checked the bearings for grease and had a look at the brake linings, which were starting to show signs of wear, mainly on the bottom of the primary shoe.
Since that was nearly 12 months ago, and we have been on a few long trips with the Sunliner I decided to have the brake shoes re bonded, clean the bearings and check for signs of wear.

So to start I jacked up the van, removed the wheel, removed the small dust cover on the hub, pulled out the split pin, removed the hub nut and then removed the hub and bearings.

The arrow points to where the linings were worn down to about 2mm.
A photo of the bottom adjusting bracket showing the cone shaped adjusting bolt.
The brake shoes were then removed, and when the other side had been done as well I sent the shoes away to get re bonded at a cost of $50 for the 2 pair.

While the shoes were being re bonded I thoroughly degreased the bearings and hub, checked the bearings for wear and repacked the bearings and hub with new bearing grease.

This is a bearing set that came with one of my other Sunliners and the numbers match the bearings in this Sunliner.
Now back to the Brakes.
The 2 pair of brake shoes after being re bonded.
This is a pair of brake shoes with the top shoe in the photo (with the longer point) being the top of the back shoe and the other one is the bottom of the front shoe.
Hope that makes sense.
The top bracket on the backing plate below is the actuater ( has the brake cable attached ) and the bottom bracket is the adjuster.
To replace the brake shoes I hooked the bottom spring on to the shoes and then fitted them to the bottom bracket / adjuster, the shoes were then fitted to the top bracket / actuator. The top spring was connected to the rear shoe and I used a pair of long nose pliers to stretch the spring to connect it to the front shoe.
Before the hub is refitted the adjusting bolt on the adjusting bracket was wound out to bring the brake shoes in as far as they will go, this way the brake linings will not be damaged by hitting the hub.
The photo below shoes the adjuster, which has a bolt with a cone shaped end, as the bolt is wound in it pushes against the two pistons which in turn push the brake shoes out.
The bearings and hub was the replaced along with the hub nut, being careful not to do it up tight but with just enough tension to stop the movement ( wobble ) in the bearings.

I roughly adjusted the brakes making sure the brake linings were free of the hubs and took the van around the block a couple of times to get the shoes into position. I then jacked up the van and adjusted the brakes.