Fwd: <VV> brake adjusters and Metallic brakes

[HallGrenn at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/22/2006 3:33:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
Sethracer at aol.com writes:

> The story  is told of 
> the guy who backs his metallic lining car out of the driveway on  a cold 
> morning and it goes straight across the street up into his  neighbors 
> driveway 
> before he can stop.

This sounds like the reoccurring nightmare I used to have about my velvetouch 
metallic shoes after all the stories I heard about metallic brakes.  But it 
never happened to me.  I used metallic shoes for about ten years on my daily 
drivers (3) and I always made sure to "seat" them carefully when first installed 
by taking the car to an empty parking lot and braking hard from 30 mph--just 
short of lockup--about 20 times to heat and seat the shoes to the drums.  The 
nightmare never was more than a bad dream and my metallic shoe equipped cars 
always stopped straight.  I kept the self adjusters on all cars and 
occassionally there was slight pull from one wheel or another at initial application, but 
nothing that my wife or I didn't learn to unconsciously adjust for by braking 
harder to even things out.  I don't have metallic shoes now because I don't 
have the time (usually) to do my own brake jobs, but when I retire I will go 
back to them if they are still available.

Bob Hall
Group Corvair
'64 Brier
'65 Corsa
2 '68 Monzas