Series 3 yet another brake problem

Good evening everyone its been a long time since I have been on this forum, the now after a couple of years renovating my 1980 swb series3 it is now on the road but the brakes 10inch single pipe system are near non existent towards my day car, but everything is new, master cylinder is set to manual settings.After giving it a very short run. not very happy with not stopping hardly, I took off one front wheel and one rear wheel and drums and found that both the linings on each wheel had only been marked by the drums about a inch on the circumference where the cylinders push out ,not much contact. any help on this welcome.The pedal travel is nearly to floor and would not like travel on a main road. Thanks Steve .

Simple stuff first.
Brake pedal height
Master cylinder pushrod free play
Brake shoes adjustment

How have you fitted the top return spring? common msitake is to attach both ends of the spring to both brake shoes, when in fact one end goes on one shoe and the other on a backplate post, and the other shoe sorts itself out, if you attach both ends of the springs to both shoes the psing effort forces the slave cylinder pistons back in so you have no to very little pedal

lynall said:

Simple stuff first.
Brake pedal height
Master cylinder pushrod free play
Brake shoes adjustment

How have you fitted the top return spring? common msitake is to attach both ends of the spring to both brake shoes, when in fact one end goes on one shoe and the other on a backplate post, and the other shoe sorts itself out, if you attach both ends of the springs to both shoes the psing effort forces the slave cylinder pistons back in so you have no to very little pedal

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Thanks Lynall , The springs are fitted as you have said and the other items you listed have been set as manual.Thanks Steve

What make shoes

A good way to check the actual contact patch is to rub chalk all over the inside of the drum. Replace it and rotate with the linings set to so you can turn the drum with moderate effort. Then pull it off and have a look at the linings.

I'm new to landys, but if your brakes are single leading shoe there is only so much adjustment to be done to get the contact patch right. It migjt be worth very very carefully removing material from the high spots of the linings until you get better contact. It works a treat with thick chunky pre-war linings (1/2" or more to play with!) but I would be super super careful with modern linings as they are so thin.

Apart from that, just double check that there is no slop in any of the mechanical parts of the system, worn bushes etc, and it migjt be worth giving it another bleed, just to be double triple sure.

Are you adjusting the snail cam properly? If the pedal is almost to the floor, are you able to pump it up? Could there still be air somewhere?

cornish rattler said:

What make shoes

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Thanks cornish rattler they are britpart in the little blue box. Thanks Steve

new landy 3 man said:

Thanks cornish rattler they are britpart in the little blue box. Thanks Steve

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I would do what everyone has said and if that doesn't work try swapping the drums over sometimes that will cure it but not always, hope this helps

new landy 3 man said:

Thanks cornish rattler they are britpart in the little blue box. Thanks Steve

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They are actually okay, Ferodo were the choice for a few years, then they had issues with the adjuster posts falling out of the shoes/noise/poor brakes, and people went back to the britpart ones.
I find you have to adjust them up tighter than I would consider normal, ie some drag as you spin the wheel is just fine, if theres no drag at all, you have to much freeplay.

New drums or old drums? if old try chamfering the sides of the brake linings.
Do not be overally concerned over the contact pattch being 100 percent, that takes quite some time to achieve ie a good few hundred miles.

As others say, get the basics right. I did that on my LWB and they were OKish at best and never really much good. spent lock-down improving them. 2 things made a big difference:
1 Fitting a bigger servo - the early 90 fits with a bit of work. Gives you 30% more braking for same pedal force.
2 Fitting Borg and Beck shoes - £30 / axle. I range a lot of brake suppliers and spoke with the B&B technical dept. They are soft and high friction, about 2x the Mintex I took off. They take some bedding in and need to be shamfered to stop them being too fierce, but I would say they are up to the std of a modern car now which is a huge difference.