brake question(s) 88 Ezgo

BrewCityMusic

well I figured after all this time and gained knowlege regarding just about every OTHER part of the cart, it was time to start screwing up the brakes, hahaha ...

To start, YES I ran the old ones so low on the drivers side that the adjuster screw kicked sideways and stripped the end, but I fixed that with a little patience and a very small file, so now it goes in and out just fine - here's the question though, the passenger side grabs like crazy but the drivers side not so much ... Do I need to get a screwdriver in there and adjust the brakes or do I just drive it until the auto-adjusters do their thing?

Thanks!

BGW

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shadowman

have you tried sanding down the shoes that are grabbing?..................

BrewCityMusic

the shoes are brand new, and I cleaned up the drums, I just have a drivers side that isn't engaging fully and I want to know if I need to adjust it or should I let the auto-adjusters (which I assume these are) do it themselves so they both grab evenly

BrewCityMusic

OK, so I gave up on being lazy, pulled the wheel and adjusted it nicely, however now when I really stomp on the brakes and the pedal gets close to the floor I get a weird "click" like something is slipping - and it's not the parking brake pawl (and the brakes grab like hell until that click, then the drivers side lets go) ... Opened it up again, all looks well - any ideas?

big mule

That's the ABS kicking in

BrewCityMusic

niiiice, thanks Mule, I totally overlooked that

ScooterMcTavish

Hey BCM,

Remembering when I was working on my sparky car brakes last year, and these are pretty simple systems - I'm not sure where a "click" could come from.

Is the noise coming from under the pedal, or in back by where the brakes are. Or is it more of a click you "feel" in your foot versus hear?

Instinctively I'm thinking that if there is a "click" on a hard stomp, it sounds like the cable holder is holding the tension tight to a certain point to close the shoes, but then lets go on a "stomp". The cable then feeds back through the hold down when the pedal is released, and grabs just tight enough for gentle braking.

BrewCityMusic

the click is definitely in the brake assembly itself (although it does give a bit of "feel" through the pedal, as well as losing pedal when it clicks - sorta like regular hydro brakes when you have a bad caliper or ???)

The cable holder seems just fine, as does the entire brake assembly itself - I'm going to pull them apart again when the rain stops and see if maybe I can locate the culprit, I'm wondering if I didn't put the shoes on backwards or something and they're slipping, even though logically that would be a different problem as they would slip and remain stuck if that was the case ...

It's a weird one, that's for sure

ScooterMcTavish

I guess the other thought could be that the drum side end of the adjuster screw has stripped in some manner (which you mentioned), and although it holds with soft pressure, the repairs aren't holding up under duress. Then, when stomped, the repaired thread it is unable to hold the tension on the screws which "pops" its tension off the pads (though you figure that wouldn't reset.....). Hmmmm.

FYI, there are good brake diagrams in the Electric E-Z-Go section.

BrewCityMusic

I thought about that too (the stripped screw) but only the first 2 or 3 threads were stripped and with the new pads, the adjuster is screwed almost all the way in (so there's almost a full inch of good threads biting - I only had to clean up the first few to get it to start threading in) ...

I'm really hating Wisconsin right now, I took a bit to get the lawnmower upper drive belt replaced because the sprinkling stopped (figured I could catch up on the mowing a bit), within about 10 minutes of replacing the shroud, etc it opened back up and now it's actually RAINING raining, can't even take the golf cart to the store for some beer (did I say beer, I meant "a brake test run") ...

Dumb question, but I know the entire adjustment assembly is supposed to move around a bit (so the brakes can center themselves, etc) but mine seem to be pretty sketchy IE loose as hell (maybe 1/2" play in each direction) - I don't see anything that could be missing or ? on the parts diagram - is that much slop normal?