Self Adjusters for Drum Brakes

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Hello all, I have a question for those of you that are familiar with Drum brakes with self adjusters. I recently replaced my master cylinder and the 2 front wheel cylinders. While I had the cylinders off I decided it would be a good time to clean up the other hardware. I noticed that the RIGHT FRONT self adjuster had an “L” stamped on it and the LEFT front had an “R” on it.??? I checked the internet and the shop manual I have for the car but cannot find any reference to the adjusters. Shouldn’t they be the other way around “R” on the right and “L” on the left?



Thanks

2

Two things:

  1. Year, Make, Model?
  2. You know the drivers side is left and the passengers side is right?
    ~Michael
3

2) You know the drivers side is left and the passengers side is right?

Well it is in the US or Canada when you are facing the direction the car travels. :slight_smile:

4

Maybe maybe not.

In a perfect world it L should be on the Left (driver) and R should be on the right (passanger).

But a company like GM may use the exact same adjuster on several vehicles. But on some of these vehicles the mechanism that turns the spindle is on the front side of the wheel…while on others it’s on the back side of the wheel. This would have you mount the adjuster differently for each of these vehicles. Thus they’d TURN in opposide directions. So instead of GM making 4 different adjusters the only make two. It gets confusing.

5

The car is a 1970 Kaiser Jeep DJ5a (An old Postal Jeep), It is a 2 wheel drive with the stock Chevy 153 CI motor, 2 speed powerglide tranny. It has drum al around. It is a right hand drive car.

6

Mike:
When was the last time GM or any other manufacturer for that matter used front drums?

That is why I asked for year, make, and model.
God you guys have to argue about everything.
~Michael

7

The adjusters (at least the star part of the adjusters) are tword the back of the wheel.

8

I pulled out my book on your Jeep DJ5 and it actually shows there are no self adjusters. It shows a bottom pivot plate and a top wheel cylinder.

My parts book however lists a right front adjuster kit, and a left front adjuster kit.

My assumption would be the one marked L went on the left and the one marked R went on the right but I cannot verify this.

~Michael

9

I looked in a 1980 parts book and it appears that there were at one time 4 self adjuster repair kits.

  1. LF
  2. RF
  3. LR
  4. RR

It is highly possible that you have the rear self adjusting kit on the front which is not uncommon and would in fact cause the right to be on the left and the left to be on the right. This could be do to consolidation of parts and that the front kit is no longer available. Hope it helps.
~Michael