Brake pedal travel normal?

[any4xx]

‘99. Two-pedal TJ. I’m still getting used to this vehicle.

My brakes work fine. Both my brake pedal and throttle pedal travel feel normal to me. BUT… My brake pedal goes down below the resting level of my throttle pedal under normal braking. If I’m not careful to move my foot way over to the left I end up pressing the accelerator pedal with the brake pedal. Normal? Not normal?? I’m used to it after a few weeks and am careful to move my oversized foot farther to the left when braking. But if it’s just my Jeep I’d rather repair whatever may be amiss with my brake system. I’m a big fan of properly working brakes.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

[Gilaguy23]

Try adjusting your rear brakes. Should bring the pedal up some if they are way out of adjustment.

 

[any4xx]

Try adjusting your rear brakes. Should bring the pedal up some if they are way out of adjustment.

Yeah… I’ve been trying to find the time to get it in the air to do just that. But I’ve got too many things going on right now. I’m just trying to figure out if the travel seems “normal: before I start messing with it. Right now it’s a back-burner issue unless someone chimes in that this amount of pedal travel is definitely indicative of a problem. If so, I’ll push other projects off to the side and get onto this.

 

[macleanflood]

Stopping in an emergency isn't something to fuck with.

I'd drop what you're doing and sort out your brakes.

-Mac

 

[mrblaine]

Yeah… I’ve been trying to find the time to get it in the air to do just that. But I’ve got too many things going on right now. I’m just trying to figure out if the travel seems “normal: before I start messing with it. Right now it’s a back-burner issue unless someone chimes in that this amount of pedal travel is definitely indicative of a problem. If so, I’ll push other projects off to the side and get onto this.

What they are trying to say is as the rear drum shoes wear, they have to move further off of the anchor pin to make contact with the inside of the brake drum and actually do something. The self adjusters are notoriously ineffective and it typically takes a periodic manual adjustment to reduce pedal travel back to normal. Add in that lots of folks drive off with the parking brake applied and that increases the wear factor a bunch.

The correct adjustment is with the star adjuster inside the brake drum with the cables slack.

 

[any4xx]

I’ll throw it up on the lift tomorrow and check the adjustment. Again though, the pedal feels normal. I’m just wondering if the relationship between the depressed brake pedal and the non-depressed accelerator pedal is what everyone else here has.

 

[macleanflood]

You also could try driving backwards and dragging the brake.

That's technically how the adjuster works. If it's not seized up.

-Mac

 

[any4xx]

You also could try driving backwards and dragging the brake.

That's technically how the adjuster works. If it's not seized up.

-Mac

Of all the cars I’ve owned, which is a lot, I think exactly zero have had self adjusting drum brakes that actually worked efficiently even with new hardware. Easier to throw it on a lift and play with the adjusters. Besides, the parking brake also has more travel than I think it should. May as well do all of that at once.

 

[any4xx]

Well… problem found. But first the long story:

As I said previously, the brake pedal felt fine, which was why I didn’t immediately suspect a brake problem. This morning as the sun rose I took a good look at the rear brakes. Whoever did the last brake job got the self adjusters installed kind of close, but not correctly. The right one wasn’t engaging the knurling at all. I reinstalled everything properly then manually adjusted both sides. A quick test drive and my foot was still pressing the throttle if my foot wasn’t centered on the brake pedal.

So to the other half of this equation: the gas pedal. Sure enough…. Someone had apparently broken the throttle cable at the pedal end and replaced either the entire cable or just the inner core. And managed to make the repair leaving the cable much too short. So my throttle is fully open with the pedal surface resting about 3.5” from the floor. Gee whiz! No wonder I’m hitting the pedal. Now off to find a new cable or replace the inner core on this one.

So while I’m happy to have found and corrected a problem with my rear brakes, that certainly wasn’t the issue. Now I can fix the real issue.

EDIT: I forgot to add that I had a supervisor during this job. This little guy was hanging out by my R-R wheel for the first half of the job. He apparently got bored or was satisfied that I was doing things correctly as he wandered off to another part of the shop after about fifteen minutes.

 

[any4xx]

I have a used throttle cable coming from an auction site seller. I researched replacement cables and found way more complaints about their improper lengths than I found touting their excellent fit. So I figured I’d be safer with a good used OEM cable than I would be with any of the aftermarket offerings. I guess I’ll know in a week when it arrives.

 

[any4xx]

New (old used, but OEM) throttle cable showed up today. Three minute job to swap it. To no surprise my foot no longer hits the gas pedal while depressing the brake pedal. The gas pedal now sits a few inches lower than it did previously. Here’s The Amazing Bubba’s previous cable repair.