Ok so now that i have anotehr car to drive everyday. i decided that i needed to fiddle with my brakes myself with my newly bought spanner/shifter whatever its called, mini brakes that is.
So i pulled off the rear wheel and took off teh braking plate cover thing. And now it will not go back on.
I didn't play with anything before i tries to put it on initially. so the mini is resting uncomfortably but safely tonight

And i cant get the plate/cover thing on why not?

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Sir Namibian CAMEL of MONGOLIA !!!
Vrilen Snyson Racing: Finding us all a Vrilen
Asparagus: Experience the versatility

Are you meaning the Drum...
Give the pads a bit of a move around

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Stop Licking the Dog...I Don't Care Who Started It

If it is the drum you will need to losen of the brake pads and they try and get it on.

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I've Got One
You've Got One
We've All Got One
What Is It



A Bloody Mini

1970 Mini K, 1380cc, 1.75 HIF SU, 30 70 Cam, 2" Zorts
1969 Mini K, Stock Standard and Orginal. (Slow as Hell)

have u got the hand brake on?

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Well the handy doesnt move anything.
I cant move teh pads.

Its the second thing that you pull off after the wheel. The drum maybe yeah. And it wont fit over the pads there. And i dont know why.

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Sir Namibian CAMEL of MONGOLIA !!!
Vrilen Snyson Racing: Finding us all a Vrilen
Asparagus: Experience the versatility

Drums...Now did you have to give them a bash to get them off or did they didn't just easz of
Is this the rear or the front

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Stop Licking the Dog...I Don't Care Who Started It

Front or rear? if it is front, the handbrake does SFA.

There is an adjuster nut somewhere on the plate, undo that in a ... I think anti clockwise and it will gradually move the pads closer together. (Just turn em in an opposite direction if it moves the futher apart )

Once you got the drum back on (drum is the really heavy thing) you have to turn that adjuster nut back so that it nearly engages the pads again. Otherwise you will lock up the brakes on the other side and this wheel won't engage on time!

This is pretty serious so I would recommend you fix it properly before you drive as you can lose control if you brake heavily on unproperly adjusted brakes! (68Deluxe's disclaimer ) This is especially if we are talking about front brakes, and *VERY*DANGEROUS* if it is wet!

Buy a Leyland Workshop manual, the black one. Best $50 you'll ever spend!!!

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

I think your shoes are out of aighment

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Stop Licking the Dog...I Don't Care Who Started It

One thing that i will always let a mechanic do... Brakes.
fiddle sticks the liablilty on yourself.
Sure save a few dollars, but is it worth it?

I agree with willy!

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

Thankyou thankyou.

We used to have people come into the shop and buy brake parts THEN ask how to fit them. We refused to get involved. Bloody frightening.

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Chris

Everything I like is either
illegal, immoral or fattening.

I said it was the rear wheel. But i dont think i bashed it too much to get it off. But something must have happened and it wont go back on. And the newly bought shifter was too small for the nut thing, so i need another one.
I have a manual as i have said also.
I got taught how to do the brakes by a mechanic last July or June, my only adjust in a full year of driving. And now the mini isnt a daily driver i can have a little fiddle myself

But ill have to keep fiddling

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Sir Namibian CAMEL of MONGOLIA !!!
Vrilen Snyson Racing: Finding us all a Vrilen
Asparagus: Experience the versatility

Ok you have taken off the rear drum to have a look see. So you can now see the 2 "C" shaped brake shoes with little springs hanging off them and a dirty big nut in the middle. Note: Your problem is not the dirty big nut in the middle and you don't need to go anywhere near that to fix this problem. So put away that "newly bought spanner/shifter whatever its called" thingie.

Braking affect happens by having these shoes [which are fixed to the hub] push outwards onto the drum [which is fixed to the rotating wheel] when you apply the brakes. The gap between the shoes and the drum is very small so that when you apply the brakes they start working pretty well straight away. This means that when you take off the drum, it can be a bit tricky to get it back on because if anything moves this small gap may no longer exist.
This is what has happened to you, the shoes have been bumped or some force has been applied though the braking lines to move the shoes so that this small gap is gone and the outside dimension of the shoes is now bigger than the inside dimension of the drum [eg something rocked the car, which moved the rear wheel on the ground, which pulled on the handbrake that side, which transfered this force through the handbrake cable, which pushed on the shoes on your side, which moved the shoes just even a little bit outwards, and are now just sitting that little bit too far out to get the drum back on]

Solution:

Adjust the brakes on that hub so that the shoes come back in a bit - moving them inwards enough to get the drum over them again. To do this look on the inside of the hub, the other side from where the shoes are, you will see 2 small square knobs sticking out the back. they are about a 1/4" square and stick out about a 1/2". These are the adjusters and they are turned one way to move the shoes inwards and the other way to move them outwards. There is one adjuster for each shoe so get a small spanner the right size for the adjuster and start turning them and watch which way the shoe moves. Now you know which way to adjust them, make both shoes sit a little bit closer inwards and try to put back on the drum over them. keep adjusting till the drum will fit over the shoes.

Now you have to adjust the shoes back out so the brakes will work. You need to have the brakes all back together and it's easier to do this with the wheel back on. You now just turn the adjuster the opposite way to before to move the shoes outwards to the correct position. [The shoes should be "just" touching the inside of the drum to be adjusted correctly] Adjust the shoes outwards until you feel the wheel just "grab" when you spin the wheel. Now just back them off a touch. do this to both adjustors and your done.

Any real mechanics out there feel free to blow this explination out of the water if I got anything incorrect.
Cheers Dat.

I was going to go through all that, but you did a better job than I would have. Apart from the typo in 'explanation', I thought it was fine.

The other point is that we were all newbies once, or alternatively are all newbies in some way or another since no-one (I believe) can retrim a seat, repaint a car in 2K and set the cam timing. The point about safety is valid though. For some reason, I have two Haynes manuals. Oh, that's right - in case they corrected anything, like in the Honda XR600 manual when they changed the oil required after a filter and oil change from 300ml to 1800ml... so I consult all the literature I can. Still didn't stop me drinking petrol syphoning out petrol from the tank rather than draining it like the manual says