Diving to the left when braking!

On the last leg of my trip into work today, I gunned my '66 to about 40 on a flat, straight section of wide road with no traffic and decided to see if that annoying "little pull to the left" when braking was worse at speed. Whoa nelly! I almost flipped the poor girl over! That thing dove down and to the left like a defensive end was between her and the goal line! There's little to no shimmy, no metal-on-metal noises, and the brakes do seem to do as good a job of stopping the Jeep as a 42 year old set of 10" drum brakes can be expected to do (save for their efforts at redirecting our path of travel at speed).

For all I know this thing sat for a while with the PO. What kinds of adjustments are possible? What should I look for if I take the wheels off and the hubs to take a look in the brakes? I've never worked on brakes before, I'm willing to learn, but I'm hesitant....would it be worth considering things like Herm's dual cylinder kit with 11" conversion and new lines, or maybe even going the disk route? Or should I just man up and get in there and try to see what's wrong? Up here in Truckee there's a limited supply of mechanics, and they all like to unnecessarily lighten your wallet since we're a captive audience. Driving to Reno for a broader choice of mechanics might not be the best option with the brakes the way they are on I-80, plus I'd like to dive into fixing it myself. What do you guys think? Is it a problem at the rotors or could it be that the passenger-side line is clogged or has air in it?

 

Get the manual and do it yourself. You can do it without a manual but if it's your first time you should have the book. Easy to forget how drums go back together until you're accustomed to working on them.

Could easily be a stuck wheel cylinder on right side. Or could be leaky cylinder on left side making your drums and shoes tacky (turns to tar when it burns off).

 

Don't forget to check rear axle shoe and seals. Had an axle seal leaking that made mine dive for the ditch when braking from 40+ mph, very scary. I did a complete rebuild of brake system from master cyl down. Straight stops are the reward.

 

Could be simply that the auto-adjusters don't work - if the 10 inch has them.
From my reading the 9 inch don't, not sure on 10 inch.

 

mine didn't.

sounds like it's time to adjust the brakes (if they aren't rusted in place). if the the hardware is bad, replace with the 11" (as the shoes/drum/hardware is cheaper than the 10").

 

Check for play in your steering system. My 72 did that when I first got it. The tie rod end on the drivers side was shot. It allowed enough play to cause the drivers tire to turn slightly left during hard breaking.

 

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

How much play in a steering system is "too much?"

 

Jack the tire up off the ground on the drivers side. Leaving the other solidly on the ground. Now place your hands on the left and right side of the drivers tire. Alternatly push with your hands. You should not feel any movement. If you feel any play then check the tie rod ends.

On Mine the tire would move about half an inch with the castle nut on the TRE tight. I'm still amazed I was able to drive the silly thing home without killing myself.

 

My 71 pulled to the right while braking, if you could call it that. Ended up replacing all of my wheel cyclinders, along with shoes. Of 8 piston's (2 in each wheel cyclinder) only 3 moved. I was going to rebuild my wheel cyclinders, but found it was easier to replace them. I also replaced the master cyclinder. Most of the cyclinder's and brake line's seemed to have water in the lines (rust), I guess due to the low placement of the master cyclinder. Once I got all the air out of the line's - no more pulling.

For me I never opened up a brake system, found out the hard way I had to in a since prime my master cyclinder, and wasn't thinking when I couldn't get them to flow by gravity. I bought a hand vaccumm pump from my local NAPA which helped a ton.

As for the self adjuster's I can not say if you have them or not. My 71 with 10" on all four corners do not have self adjuster's, guess they never did.