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Is it just me, or are the adjusters on the XJ's rear drums worthless?

anthrax323

anthrax323

NAXJA Forum User
Location
San Antonio, TX
Hey guys,

Every 6 weeks or so, I find my brakes getting a bit soft... They remain effective when traveling forward, but when reversing, the rears are almost worthless.

So, I find myself having to manually adjust my rear drums, which gets everything back in order in no time.

My question is this... Do any of you find yourselves having this issue? Do your self-adjusters seem to be lame as well? If not, I think I'll go ahead and buy new self adjuster kits in the hopes of getting everything back in order.
 
The adjusters end up full of crud after a time.

Pull them apart--one side at a time so you have a reference--then clean them up with a wire wheel and reassemble with anti-seize on the threads.

People in general seldom replace the rear brake hardware--shoes, wheel cylinders yes, but seldom the hardware. That stuff wears and after enough time the tolerance become to large for them to do their jobs. So you crawl under there and adjust them by hand, but the auto-adjust still isn't working.
 
Thanks for the tips - when I re-did the rears a few months back (drums, shoes, cylinders) I did clean everything throughly with a wire brush and brake cleaner... But yeah, I still have to do them by hand every so often.

I'm getting the feeling the self-adjuster lever isn't grabbing the teeth on the screw assembly very well anymore. Not an ordeal, just a nuisance.
 
Yeah, might be time to consider replacing those they might be too worn down to engage.
 
It is possible to make those adjusters work, but they're finicky and I dislike them.

The teeth do get blunt and rusty over time, and the cable gets stiff and rusty, and the little claw also gets rounded over, and on aftermarket parts it's often hard to keep the cable pivot seated in the hole in the drum. All of this, added to the rusting of the adjuster itself, conspires to make this setup, if not worthless, pretty close.

I recently went through mine, and they've been working now for about six months, which is unusual.
 
I always take mine apart and coat the threads inside the adjusters with wheel bearing grease. When I took mine apart for the first time, one of the cables was not the right length to hold the adjuster lever in the correct position to engage the "star wheel".

Complete new kit is a a good idea, but be careful about getting the correct one. I think the rear drums came in two different diameters.
 
I replaced every thing about 1 1/2 ago cleaned the backing plates and painted them wheel cyl shoes ,all hardware drums sand blasted, painted and truned upgraded to a dubble boster and Master cyl from a Grand Cherokee done the the same on the front new calibers ,hoses and pads ,rotors and hardware.Brakes stop on a dime when ajusted right but my rears I have to ajust every 2 or 3 mo by hand . Even when useing the Ebrake to ajust them the book say to back up and apply e Brake to ajust . dosent work good ajusting them like that.
 
The factory service manual actually says that to adjust, you should go both forward and back, applying the brakes firmly, and being sure to come to a complete stop each time. I don't think the cable gets pulled unless the shoe stops against the drum and servo action pulls the shoe around a bit. Anyway, that seems to work well (when the dad-blasted things are working at all, that is).
 
I put on new cables, springs and ajusters and all still dosent work like it should didnt even reuse the Ebrake levers. The only part I reused was the backing plates and the drums spent about 250.00 for parts for the fromt and rear brakes and the Grand Cherokee boster swap ,I got those parts for free from a friend that wecked his 96 From what I have hard Jeep cherokee brakes just suck. Dont get me wrong mine is with stock size tires and no lift when I have the rear brakes ajusted up to where they should be it will almost throw you thru winshield if you hit them hard you can lock all 4 wheels up and slide the Jeep easey
 
Dobbs said:
I put on new cables, springs and ajusters and all still dosent work like it should didnt even reuse the Ebrake levers. The only part I reused was the backing plates and the drums spent about 250.00 for parts for the fromt and rear brakes and the Grand Cherokee boster swap ,I got those parts for free from a friend that wecked his 96 From what I have hard Jeep cherokee brakes just suck. Dont get me wrong mine is with stock size tires and no lift when I have the rear brakes ajusted up to where they should be it will almost throw you thru winshield if you hit them hard you can lock all 4 wheels up and slide the Jeep easey
Click to expand...
Even if you were really careful putting it all together, you might want to pop the drums off one more time and make sure that the adjuster pawls are lined up right against the adjusters. If they're not, check the pivots where they sit over the hole in the shoe. They can come out of the hole while you're putting the springs in, and the springs will hold them in place, and it's hard to see the slight displacement. But if they're out, the pawls will miss the adjusters.
 
I'd bet 75% of them are not/do not adjust correctly. Installing the ZJ discs were one of the most effective mods I did to mine. I can only imagine how sucky those drums are with bigger tires. . .
 
gradon said:
I'd bet 75% of them are not/do not adjust correctly. Installing the ZJ discs were one of the most effective mods I did to mine. I can only imagine how sucky those drums are with bigger tires. . .
Click to expand...

i too got fed up with my rear drums. i went with zj rear disks and i havent looked back. the e brake works, i could lock up 31s no problem (not so much so on 35s but still better than drums). now i can actually stop the jeep on a steep downhill in low range with 35s. most with drums that i wheeled with can't. rear disks are increadably easy and well worth it IMHO.
 
ahhh drums have a certain charm to them. I believe the switched to the smaller drum in the early 90's. I think my 94 zj has the bigger drums.

I never understood why people dont replace the springs and other junk when they service their drums. The kit from rock auto is $5 for both sides!
 
Is it just me, or are the adjusters on the XJ's rear drums worthless?
======================================================
Sorry dude!
Only true for them that don't know how to maintain or repair them. I had 3 XJ and many other car/trucks with same set up and no problems.
I get a little tired of the bad mouthing drums get from people that just don't know how.
The jeep setup is about the same as millons of cars/truck that came before it. All working very well THANK YOU.
IN short find someone that knows how to work on them or get a good brake book and read it.
 
badron said:
Is it just me, or are the adjusters on the XJ's rear drums worthless?
======================================================
Sorry dude!
Only true for them that don't know how to maintain or repair them. I had 3 XJ and many other car/trucks with same set up and no problems.
I get a little tired of the bad mouthing drums get from people that just don't know how.
The jeep setup is about the same as millons of cars/truck that came before it. All working very well THANK YOU.
IN short find someone that knows how to work on them or get a good brake book and read it.
Click to expand...


This is why I'm still on drums with mine. Most of my buddies dontknow how to or won't work on drums. I like them they are simple to me. But then again i do work on air brakes every day so. With stock Dana 44 drums and a set of Dana 30 disks up front I can still lock up 35s andstop when in low range. I do have a double diaphragm booster tho
 
Sorry, but I know how to fix them, how to maintain them, I do so and they work, and I still think they're lousy. The generic American drum brake is an orphan, retained because the components are cheap and nobody has needed to spend a penny on engineering in the last 50 years or so. You could take the brakes from a mid-60's Scout and put them alongside those of your Cherokee, and except for dimensions, you'd never be able to tell them apart. The tools I used to maintain my Scout brakes are the same tools I use on my Cherokee.

Of course if we wanted better and more reliable drum brakes (which do exist), we'd have to pay for them. What we have instead are the very predictable, very familiar, very cheap brakes that any mechanic from the last 50 years could recognize at a glance and fix without a manual, but the price we pay for that is that they suck the same as they have for the last 50 years.
 
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