Hey all, looking around the forum I couldn't find a similar post, so here goes. On the 67 Riv aluminum drum, both of the front brake shoes are dragging, stopping and holding the car in place at idle. I really have to get into it to free them up. Is it adjustment because it is both of the front wheels or something else like a proportioning valve that I hear people talking about? Could it be that I didn't fully release the pedal when bleeding them? I'm new to this, so please help me. Also, could it be as simple as adjusting the star wheel?
Its a possibility that the front rubber hoses are collapsed internally and locking the fluid in the wheel cylinders. . Open the wheel cylinder bleeder and see if the brakes free up. If the brakes release, I would look at the brake hoses as being the culprit
Adjusting those front drums was always a pain for me, which is why I went to custom 2-piston disc brakes 8 years ago. The wheel cylinders could be leaking, getting fluid on the shoes and making them stick, or the cylinders could be sticking, bad springs, etc. For me, every time I tried to adjust the star wheels to get the fronts even, I would always get a pull to one side when applying the brakes...sometimes at different speeds it would pull in a different direction. Pull the drums & check the cylinders for leaks, check the shoes & springs, and check the lines for swells and/or cracks.
How do I pull the drums? Are there 4 large rivets from the factory holding each one in place? What exactly am I looking at when I pull the wheel off?
No! You take the dust cap off, remove the castle nut, washer small outer wheel bearing and pull them off. Now would be a good time to clean and repack the wheel bearings. Otherwise you can just leave well enough alone and reverse the process without repacking the bearings. To tighten the castle nut, use and adjustable wrench and just snug it down while giving the drum a few spins to make sure nothing is binding. Back off the nut till you expose the hole in the spindle through one of the castles of the nut. Put a NEW 1/8" x2" cotter pin through the hole. Bend one end over the spindle and cut the end that you left straight. Before you start talking stuff apart, try my suggestion first. Im assuming here that when you put the car on jack stands the front wheels are dragging and don't free wheel? If so, just loosen the bleeder and see if they free up.
Revisiting this old thread. Jason was 100% right with the collapsed brake hoses. Fixed all rubber lines after unnecessarily buying a new master cylinder. Initially I only replaced the front two hoses, and then drove the car for a week on just the front brakes. You could say I like to live dangerously. Rebuilt my driverside rear wheel cylinder last weekend, bled it, and now I have all my brakes working right. Car stops hard, brakes strong. Love this beast, flogged it up to 90 easily on the highway not even putting the pedal to the floor. With new tach installed, gets to 4k and the ignition says no more. Talking to Ken from Everyday and he's got an Hei setup that'll work for me. This is the quickest car I own (only one I own) and is faster than some of my family members cars
Glad you got it stopping even. HEI is a good system, I put the Pertronix Ignitor III in mine, fits completely under the stock cap and it has a built-in rev-limiter which can be easily adjusted. I don't do any racing, but the Ignitor III has been flawless since I put it in...much more reliable than the Ignitor I or II systems I tried to use before. Always good to have less moving parts when electronics are concerned.
I would go with a different type of Ignitor if I had the patience to deal with a second one. Might as well do the best I could, within reason, and get a quality Hei. How did the ignitor make your car feel compared to points? I'd want to hear more so I have something similar to hope for.
I didn't run the points for very long, since I got the car transported up to NorCal after buying it, I tore the engine down with my friend to replace the head gaskets. He also took my heads to work, tore them down, hot-tanked them and rebuilt them for me. After getting everything together, the engine ran fine, with my friend setting my points with a dwell meter, and it ran smooth...although it was running the stock Rochester 4MV carb which leaked and sometimes would get choppy. Once I got the top end back together, I may have run the points for about 3-4 months before I put the Ignitor I in. It ran good for a few years, until I started developing a miss at low RPMs. I took off the cap, and found white dust everywhere from the lamination of the magnet wheel, and a few of the magnets had fallen out. Even though I'd adjusted the height to get the gap correct between the wheel & pickup, it ended up rubbing anyway. I replaced the system (new wheel & pickup), but soon it started acting up again. My distributor gear is worn, so the rotor rides up/down a fraction of a mm depending on the RPMs, which is all it takes for the pickup to cut out and not fire the coil. Adjusting it was difficult. Too close: it rubs. Too far: it doesn't fire. The Ignitor III system doesn't use the wheel, so it is much more reliable. I don't see a *huge* difference in performance between the points vs. the Ignitor, but the reliability of the 3rd-generation system has been very solid for me.
Thank you for writing that out. Is the performance mostly in your head, because people want to feel justified that they spent their money well, or does HEI have its merits?
I use the 1 wire set-up when I rebuild/re-curve distributors. Looks completely stock & have NEVER had a come back in 15+ years.
For the type of driving I do: I don't see a major difference in the performance. Were I to race or take my '67 to the strip, then I may see more difference in the performance. Our engines are pretty low-RPM compared to what's out there today, so there's not a lot of: "point float," going on in our operating range. HEI is a perfectly acceptable alternative, but it will not look stock with your engine. HEI didn't become available until the 70s. I put a HEI system in my 74 C20 with the 454, and it ran great (when I didn't run out of gas). However, I didn't care about keeping the rusty pa kettle truck looking vintage...neither did the a$$holes who stole my hubcaps... For me, with my carb setup & timing set properly, the Ignitor III has my 430 purring like a kitten & giving plenty of pep around town & freeway cruising while keeping cool with decent fuel economy. Compared to the Ignitor I, I think it is superior. Lots of guys here use different systems, and many keep the stock points installed, and are completely satisfied with it. For me: I made a decision to replace the entire system from the firewall up with the Ignitor III parts, and have had zero ignition issues for 8 years running.
Thank you once again. I haven't thought of different driving styles quite as much. I'm looking to buy parts now that I can transplant to this same 430 after going under the machine shop knife in several years, that's why I'm going with HEI and eventually looking for 500hp. I never want to let this car go, so I'm planning it out like that. I want to surprise people with the car. Live up to the Buick name, per se.
