rear brake adjustment- centering brake shoes - 45 flathead

[mollo]

Just finished the exchange of the rear brake shoes on my 45 flathead.
The manual explains, that for centering brake shoes in drum, loosen the lower brake shoe stud bolt and tighten while break is beeing operated.
However accessability of this lower stud is very poor. Any advice how this can be done? special tools required ?

Any feedback sincerely appreciaetd.

Regards
Oliver

[RvP]

Rear Brake Adjustment - centering brake shoes

I see your post has been stagnant for a long time. I don’t have the answer and have the same dilemma and was hoping one of the experts would respond with an answer. It’s impossible to get to the rear shoe’s pivot stud to center the brake shoes. Just wanted you to know you are not alone with this question.

[John Guntner]

45 rear brake

Hello Oliver,
I'm not sure if you got an answer to your brake question. Here is my take on it. You need to remove the assembly and it is quite simple to do. Take note. Some guys have taken the rear wheel off with the brake drum still attached and not realizing that the drive gear sticks out farther than the sprocket, laid the wheel down and drove crap into the gear and worse wet, bent the spigot which should run true. This is all part of a restoration. You also have to center the brake shoes. Now, whenever you do any work back there you should remove the drive unit from the backing plate. You need to remove your rear wheel. You need to lock the wheel. Apply the brake and set your brake lock against the battery box, loosen the lug nuts and work the wheel off the brake shell carefully. This allows you to remove the wheel and not work your brake drum, spigot and drive gear against your speedometer drive unit and causing damage. Sorry I'm not very good at relaying technical stuff but I hope this helps enough for you to ask enough questions to get an understanding of what actually goes on back there. Follow the book for centering the shoes and you're good to go. Hope this helps.....John

[RvP]

Centering 45 rear brake shoes

John,
I appreciate the reply but the question has to do with accessing the nut on the backing plate that will allow the rear brake shoes to be centered. On the 45 this nut is not accessible with the rear wheel and brake parts installed. What I am wondering (assuming Oliver is also) is there some special wrench or homemade tool that can reach the hidden nut to allow the brake shoes to be centered? No wrench I have can sneak in to where the nut is located to loosen it to center the rear brake shoes.
Is it even possible to center the rear shoes with all the parts assembled on the frame or is the rear brake shoes centered off the frame somehow?