Brake help

[mholmes]

:cross-eye Today I did a complete brake job on my son's car. i had my stepdaughter's boyfriend help me as he is more knowledgable about brakes than I am. I now have several questions. The rear drums were a &$)%&%$# to get off and put back on. Is there a trick to getting them back on as we spent over 30 min on one of them alone. Is adjustment needed each time new shoes are put on? I did replace the wheel cylinders as I was doing this too.

One of the left front pads was almost completely gone and the remaining still had some pad left. However, the right side pads were still in good shape. What caused this and how do I correct it?

After bleeding all system went for a drive with my help and got on a straight road and applied the brakes pretty good and the car pulls to the left like crazy. It didn't do this before the new brakes. Guessing that this is related to the condition of the old worn out pad but now I'm concerned for my 16 yr old son to be driving it.

Any help that you can give to this novice is greatly appreciated.:cross-eye

[zbane]

Snip-"One of the left front pads was almost completely gone and the remaining still had some pad left. However, the right side pads were still in good shape. What caused this and how do I correct it?"

I recently had an issue where my Right front pads where wearing faster then their left counterparts, and the car was pulling to the right upon braking. What was happening in my case was that the brake caliper was sticking. I wasn't able to tell if it was the caliper that needed repair, or if it was an issue with the 27 year old rubber brake lines. I replaced the lines (good idea), but this did not solve the problem, but did make it better. It turned out that my caliper was sticking, and was getting progressively worse.

How can you check this? Drive around the block, come home, jack the car and try to rotate the wheel. If your caliper is sticking, you will have trouble turning the wheel.

Hopefully my personal experience will be of some use, but do a quick search-there is a ton of info that will help (that's where I started), and I know that our brake systems are different, so you may find some tricks/suggestions there that will help.

Good Luck

[mlc240z]

definitely caliper sticking, or possible hose kinked.

my cousin once did a break job on my father's car and kinked the right brake hose. pulled like a bitch to the left. untwisted caliper/hose all was well.

think it thru, one side is grabbing, other side isn't.

car will pull in the direction of the 'good' brake.