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I spent all day in the garage today, it was indeed a "good friday"; 53d F and sunny!

Most of the time was cleaning and installing 10 additional fluorescent light fixtures; my garage glows now, but only from the garage door opener back. I'll have to install additional fixtures towards the front of the garage later.

I drove the packard out of the garage, but one of the brakes locked up on me. I didn't have time or inclination to disassemble the brakes today, so I put the car on dollies and pushed it back in after the lights were installed. It took me, the neighbor, and my wife working a ratchet to get the heavy old packard back into the garage. I have it on four jack stands now, awaiting tomorrow and the brake inspection.

Now that the car is on the jacks it is REALLY difficult to get the engine compartment. I'll have to read the manual and find out how to remove the front two fenders.

I need to have the car back on the road by the third weekend of June and the big yearly MSRA car show. I plan on going after the water distributing tube, a pesky exhaust manifold leak, and some degreasing/rattle can painting under the hood.

Need help!

My front left brake is allowing the grease to get into the brake area, I must have a bad seal somewhere. Ideas? Please see the pictures below.

Additionally the shoe lining is coming off; I plan on taking the shoes back in to the same place to get them lined again, 2 out of 4 are bad.

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There's only the one seal (gr19.0015) so that would be the culprit but to me it looks like there is an awfully lot of grease there--maybe someone was a bit generous and the excess is flowing out.

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Isn't there also a weep-hole behind the retainer plate which may be clogged? If so, much of that grease, once it got past the seal, should have run out on the backside of the backing plate. Still would have required fixing, might just have saved the linings though.

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7.5 volts is high. Should be no more than 7.4 volts with a dead battery. If the battery is up and the charging system is still reading 7.4 volts across the battery something is miss adjusted in the voltage regulator. One tenth of a volt makes more difference in the charging current than you might think. Also keep in mind that the voltage will only be that high with a dead or very low battery and should back off a lot when the battery charge comes up.

This is a great site, thanks for the input.

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Bob - is there a way of adjusting the voltage regulator? I had it rebuilt, but not exactly sure what they did.

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Howard - I bet you are right, I packed too much in. So, if there can be too much grease and not enough grease, what is "Just Right"?

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Owen- I'll look for the weep hole. The linings are shot, broken apart, I'll have to have them relined.

Thanks again, Bob, Howard, Owen!!!

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Carl,

As long as you know the part numbers, you can probably get brand new shoes for less that $30 for your local parts store. Napa had mine in stock as they crossed to several other cars well up into the '70s.

Just a thought.

Carl, do you know the shoe size? Lining length and width?

So, I just measured the brake linings with a tape measure.

Front: 2 1/4" wide (your 54 is 2 1/2" ?)

front shoe / front wheel is shorter (11 3/8") than the rear shoe of the front wheel (13") - this could be due to damage from excess grease...

Rear (all four shoes): 2" wide, 13 1/4" length

There's probably lots of opinion on the amount of grease needed but this fellow in the video does it similar to the way I was taught. Would start by cleaning all the excess out of the hub center space. Wipe the bearing so the majority (not necessary to be completely dry) is removed from the bearing and races and then doing this procedure.

youtube.com/watch?v=agxjGtmHV_4