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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Frogeye front brake cylinders

I replaced my front cylinders and all seems ok except the adjusters need to be almost fully adjusted (do you get what I mean) before the new shoes come into contact with the drums. Now this wasn't the case with the old leaky cylinders. The drums are in good condition, not very worn, in fact I think they were replaced not long before I bought the car. The new shoes are proper mintex jobs so should also be fine

The cylinders I used came with all the bits when I bought the car and were in perfect brand new condition, but the boxes make no refernce to the midget or Sprite but do say Morris Minor 1000. Externally the dimensuions etc are the same.

So question 1 is: are the moggy cylinders a straight swap and 2 if not is there a difference that woudl be casuing the adjustment so I should replace these new cylinders and 3 Is there another reason for this that is obvious to you that I can't see?

Any thoughts you guys have...?

Mark
Mark '59 Frog

Mark
Assuming you have changed the shoes and cylinders at the same time I would guess that the difference lies with the shoe profile rather than the cylinders. In other words the height of the lining above the heel and cutout is greater on the old set than the new ones. Put it down to dodgy aftermarket tolerancing. But if you are already at eight clicks (I'm guessing) on the adjuster screw, you'll quickly run completely out of adjustment once the new linings have bedded in. If you don't want to change the shoes again I've found the easiest fix is to fettle a corrective shim to go underneath the mask adjuster to raise the profile of the lining. So the eight clicks you're on now is reduced to one or two. Once the shim is good to go tack it on with MIG and dress it off. I've run like this on the rears for donkeys years and never had a problem.
f pollock

I had the same problems with my rear brakes on my Midget.
Eventually I welded a tiny bit to the heel of the shoes and dressed that. This also cured the problem for me and I was able to adjust my rear brakes perfectly.
Bob (robert) Midget Turbo

I agree with Bob. I too have welded many shoe heels and dressed them afterwards.. Ever since the EPA made the garages stop re-profiling the brake shoes this problem has come up.
Just lay a small bead of weld on the heel and clean it up. Then the adjuster will be back in range. On some with well turned drums I have had to hand sand the shoes to fit the curvature of the drum. Time consuming but well worth it.
Sandy
Sandy Sanders

Thanks guys. I hadn't even considered the shoes may be a different size. That does seem the most likely. I presume then that the morris minor cylinders are fine!

Mark
Mark '59 Frog

This thread was discussed on 16/02/2008

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