Swapping the leading and trailing shoes can tend to make the brakes self servo. The Girling design is non self servoing, unlike the Wagner brakes. This is also the reason the ends of the brake linings are chamfered.

Having said that I've worked on lots of cars with them wrong, and it doesn't have a disastrous effect.


I really don't think the diameter of the cylinders has that much of an effect. The diameter of the cylinder is not related to whether or not the car has a limiting valve. It is related to whether or not the car has a servo. They all had limiting valves after a certain year, servo or not. I think the limiting valve came in in 1965 or so.

The spring in the cylinder makes no difference, the pull of spring is way stronger. Did you adjust the drums correctly?


When setting up from scratch you first adjust the shoes with the adjuster on the backplate, leaving the handbrake cable loose. You tighten the adjuster until the drum locks and then back the adjuster off 3 clicks. Stamp on the brake pedal to centre the shoes and adjust again. Backing the adjuster off 3 clicks should leave the drum to rotate freely, slight rubbing on the high spots is OK but the drum should be able to be rotated freely by hand.

After that set the handbrake cable to give 6 clicks or so 'till it is tight. This should not make the drum go tighter. If you do the handbrake cable first the drums will never be right. Once the cable is set correctly it isn't necessary to slacken the handbrake off for routine adjustment.


Are you sure its not the servo you can hear?

Regards


Pete