Dodge 50 Brake service advice

Welcome to another splendid and helpful page from ©dodge50.co.uk

A bit of advice on Dodge 50 Brakes.

If you are having trouble with your brakes then there are a couple of things I would like to mention.

From my experience and what I've seen others do. (For Example the first one is NOT one of my mistakes)

Remember the wheel nuts on the near side are left hand thread, and off side are right hand thread unless some twit has fitted them wrong, like on Jims Dodge , his offside front wheel is left hand thread not right!! So check them.

1. When trying to get the Front Brake Drum off a Dodge 50,

DON'T, take wheel off, unwind brakes and hit drum with a hammer to try and get it off the wheel studs.

DO, Remove wheel, slacken brakes, remove stub axel retaining nut cover (4x 10mm head bolts), splitpin, castle nut, thick washer, outer bearing and then pull the drum off Over the brake shoes. (sometimes you don't need to slacken off the brakes the drum just slips off)

2. When replacing wheel cylinders/seals:

DON'T, just whip them out.

DO, make sure the brake pipe can be undone / doneup without twisting the pipe as it might form a split in the pipe, leading to a leak, which leads to having to get a new brake pipe which is a pain in the arse when you need to get that vehicle moving.

DO, make sure you can get the part you need, if you need a seal kit, Lockhead/AP come seperately but some Girling kits come in axel kits (X4) which means when one seal goes it can cost you £5-00 to £45-00 depending on the system you have.
( I have a B reg B75 which has Lockhead Brakes, but Jims B reg S56 has Girling Brakes)

DO, if you can replace seal kits with cylinder in place (some girling cylinders let you) then do.

DON'T try this unless you are sure you can fit the dust cover with cylinder in place as it can be very hard.

3. When replacing rear axel Hub seals: coz they are leaking all over your brakes.

DON'T just get the new seal and pull the old one out and fit the new.

DO, Check if your old seal is one or two piece, if it is two piece then a tapered shim will be attached to the stub axel just out from the backplate.

DON'T, Try and fit a one piece seal without taking off the tapered shim on hub axel if a two piece seal was fitted pre-dismantling. You can fit one or two piece seals to all axels.

4. When fitting new brake shoes make sure they are exactly the same as the old ones or you might not be able to fit the self adjusting/ anti-unadjust fittings.

5. Make sure you have loads of brake fluid for bleeding the system.

If you still need help contact me