Morris Minor Owners Club

Well I am a bit puzzled by this, I am on my 4th minor now so hardly new to it all. About a month ago I bought a do your brakes kit from Bull Motif and did the rear brakes and cylinders, new drums too as old ones scored. Back wheels would lock up if needed and the handbrake locks em up too (set on 4 /5 clicks to operate)
I have just done the fronts, new cylinders, shoes, good used drums, busted the glaze off, all adjusted up hard and backed off one click, good solid pedal after bleeding but though the rears will still lock up on the handbrake nothing will lock up on the footbrake now and the brakes are a bit disappointing.

I know the brakes should be capable of more than I am getting as when I did my van and adjusted them up I got much better braking than I am getting now. Not sure what to try next, any ideas?

new shoes are likely to be a modern lining material - in general these are less effective than the 90's stuff.
With new shoes, it's likely a lot of the pedal effort will be lost in deforming the shoe to fit the drum. When they are fully bedded in (1000+ miles) they will hopefully be worn to match the drum exactly. The contact area wiill be higher and the pedal effort should be less as the leading shoe effect will be much more effective.

Been there with exactly the same problem. I gently filed many high spots off the shoes to get full contact with the drum which improved things slightly but in the end I fitted new drums as the old ones were slightly oval and not upto the job. If you have thick enough drums you can skim them slightly to ensure yours are not oval or replace them for about £25 a pair....

If the dums are 'oval' you will get vibration and snatching. lack of effort is just as the othrers have said - poor contact between shoes and drum. And poor coef of friction on the new 'camel dung' environmetally friendly brake linings. Just do some left foot braking as you drive along and bed them in. Then if you whip the drums off - you will find the high spots - rub them off if you like with a rough file - or just keep on bedding them in! I'm trying hard to think if it would be possible to put the shoes,cylinders on as trailing rather than leading - but pretty sure it's not possible. Are these early 7" drums - or later 8" drums ?? There is of course a very straightforward brake upgrade you can make ............. But I'd better not mention it just now.

Yes bmc not found a set of Wolseley brakes yet......mine are 8" drums as a 1967 car. It was indeed in the 90's that I last replaced Morris brakes and the MOT man was astonished how they locked the wheels up on the rollers. I don't think the drums are oval as I don't get shuddering....I don't think you can assemble as trailing bmc as the bolt sizes on the cylinders are deliberately different presumably to prevent this.

I will try a bit of bedding in and look for high spots then.

Might be possible to do 'trailing' if fitted the cylinders on wrong sides ?? But I don't think so really.