MTFCA Forum

Good afternoon. I recently acquired a 1913 touring that is an older restoration and that appears to have been heavily driven with a fair amount of deferred maintenance. I have 1 1/2 other T's, so I'm quite familiar driving and working on them.

On a drive yesterday I stopped at a stop light facing uphill. After coming to a complete stop and having the brake pedal still depressed, the car rolled back several feet and then stopped again. Something is worn out and needs replacing, but I can't picture what in the transmission or rear end would allow that to happen if worn. Any thoughts on what would cause the car to roll back that much?

Thanks,
Mike

Blown u-joint or something in the rear end. No matter, as is needs to come apart. I wouldn't drive it again till it's fixed.

?!? Not enough information. Presumably you drove away when the light changed ? If that was the case, U-joint and / or rear end are functional, regardless how worn out. Brake band out of adjustment and/or worn out, possibly found something to grab after rolling backward ?

That is normal, if you have Rocky Mountain Brakes and do not keep the brake band adjusted.

Would you happen to have a set of the modern Rocky Mountain Brakes on it? They don't work very well in reverse. If it is adjusted correctly, the transmission brake should come on if you push hard on the pedal. Otherwise you can pull the parking brake.
If that is not your problem, I would agree it could be something loose from the U joint to the back wheels. would need to come apart to find out just what is loose.
Norm

Thanks for your replies. Sorry for not providing more detail. I didn't want to overload my initial post. The car does not have rocky mountain brakes, and only has the standard transmission drum brake. It ran fine for the rest of the way home, but I was close to home and didn't need to stop on any more hills. I hear no grinding or detect any slippage in the transmission or rear end. The brake engaged, but there was a lot of slop that allowed it to roll back. Maybe it was only a couple of feet, but it felt like I could have rolled into a car stopped behind me if there had been one. The other T's I've driven have not done this, so I was caught off guard.

Based on the sloppiness in the front end (now repaired) and how loose the engine feels, plus it lacks power (low compression, or carbon buildup, or...TBD), I'm half expecting that I'll be rebuilding the engine, transmission, driveshaft, and rear end this winter. I am very curious what is causing the roll-back because if it's a dire situation then I will not drive it. Perhaps there's just so much wear in all of it that there's just excessive slop that is harmless. Or, maybe something more serious is wrong that could have catastrophic results. I didn't know if you guys had this happen before and if so, what the problem likely is.

Thanks again for your thoughts on this!

@ the least, check the condition & adjustment of your brake band now.
That much back slop doesnt seem possible from the U-joint alone. However, for your piece of mind, you can remove the big grease cup & get a limited look @ the U-joint's condition. For a much better look, pull the 4 DS flange bolts. there is about a 5/8" grease hole in the tube ball. You can get a real good idea of condition. Do the easy diagnostics first.

Open up the transmission cover and check the brake band to see if it’s simply worn out. A good band adjustment with good bands wouldn’t have the two ends of a band to close together. If after “adjustment” the band is almost touching or getting close together the band itself is just worn out. Take a look to see if the drums or scored and if they are your down to the rivets. That’s not good.

If that’s not it I wouldn’t drive the car and have parts more broken up more than they are already are. Besides if it won’t stop on a hill or curve you’ll have a torn up T and possibly yourself.

John kuehn wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 04, 2024 9:41 pm

Open up the transmission cover and check the brake band to see if it’s simply worn out. A good band adjustment with good bands wouldn’t have the two ends of a band to close together. If after “adjustment” the band is almost touching or getting close together the band itself is just worn out. Take a look to see if the drums or scored and if they are your down to the rivets. That’s not good.

If that’s not it I wouldn’t drive the car and have parts more broken up more than they are already are. Besides if it won’t stop on a hill or curve you’ll have a torn up T and possibly yourself.

This is/was my guess. Worn out brake band LINING, at least way out of adjustment, maybe even the band itself is broke and not grabbing. Seems those removable ear type are prone to breaking too if it happens to have that style. I didn't read closely enough to tell. As my former school bus mechanic used to say..."start out with the easy stuff first", half the time that's the problem. The easy stuff is to open the inspection cover and take a good look inside with a bright flashlight, and push on the brake pedal and watch what goes on in there. You may be surprised.

There was another post here where the demountable band had the part that lifts off on the passenger side and it disconnected with a hard brae action.