Saturday I was helping Scott change wheels and tires on his XJ Wagoneer.
While it was on the lift, he decided to take a look at his brakes. He found his front pads worn nearly to the backing plate. We searched the barn for a set of pads that I know I have. I had a set of pads that I carried around when we rally raced my Jeep Cherokee. Since his Jeep uses the same pads as mine I was sure we had spares. After a thorough search turned up no pads for an 88 XJ, he used my Jeep to go to the parts store.
While he was gone, I took was going to tighten up his rear drum brakes. As I turned the adjuster, I noticed that it did into click like it is supposed to. I loosened them back up and took the drum off. I found that the cable to works the adjuster was broken.
I dug through my spare parts and found a complete brake setup. When Scott returned, we pulled the cable out and replaced his with it.
We decided to check the other side and found that the cable was intact but simply not attached to the adjuster. After hooking it back up that side adjusted fine also.
We then proceeded to replace the pads on the front. The wear pattern on the pads showed that the calipers were binding on the locater pins. We pulled the pins out and greased them thoroughly. We found the Teflon sleeves to be worn but not really worth an hour’s drive back to the parts store for new ones.
We cleaned it all up and made sure the calipers moved properly. We cleaned and lubricated all the sliding surfaces to make sure the brakes would work properly.
One all the brake work was done we continued with mounting the tires that had started this adventure.
After a quick test drive Scott decided that he may not need to modify his brake booster after all. He can now stop as well as go.