It came time to replace the brake shoes, wheel cylinders and rear seals. The brake job turned into a bit more than I expected it would and took longer than planned. I have done a great deal of brake jobs over the years as a mechanic but never this type with the adjusting cams. To say I am not at all impressed with the system is an overstatement. So much so that I will start looking for a set of 11" brakes to put on my Jeep in the future.

With a worn groove on the axles I wanted to relocated the inner seals so I made a seal driver that is adjustable. I also made a cam adjustment wrench that works just fine. Later this year I plan to make and sell them and other tools I have made to repair my Jeep but right now I have other things to take care of.

Using the driver is easy but adjusting it takes a some careful measuring. I enjoy making the tools more than I do working on the Jeep, but I have always liked making tools rather than using them. Here's a photo of the driver.

The seals are in now but the way it works is you put the bearing cone on the bearing and then measure from the line on the used cone to about 1/16" short of the wear groove on the axle. That is the part that takes some thought and awareness. You use that distance to measure from the inner end of the seal to the inner surface of the flange shoulder that goes into the axle housing, set the nut against the outer flange surface and lock the jam nut. Then you can drive the seal in place and it will be about 1/16" out from the worn area of the axle.

If your using a new bearing and cone there won't be any dirty mark on the OD of the cone. For that you install the axles and set the end clearance and then measure how far out the bearing cone sticks out, which will be the thickness of the shim pack. Remove the axles and measure the distance from the rear of the cone to the worn groove and subtract the cone protrusion plus 1/16" and set the seal driver as outlined above. Then drive the seal in.

This is probably hard for some to visualize and a drawing would help, which will be included with the driver. I guess you can see you need to be wide awake and fully understand just what is going on when setting the driver.

I could just make it a fixed distance but that may not work in every case depending on how deep the seal was driven in before. I suspect most people just bottom the seal in the bore.