You're probabally goingo to be jumping on this ongoing mess this weekend, and a taking some chill pills for a few days is the best approach.

Because advisors aren't there cracking bleeders and stepping on the pedal, there is a lot of guessing going on, and the wording used to describe the problem adds a signifigant haze factor.

You say it's acting as if it has air in the system. The thing is you must determine whether or not there is air in the system. If it picks up air as you bleed it, it's going to spit air when you bleed. If it's not spitting air--a couple of resivor full of fluid pumped throught they system provides you with a safe bet that there is no air in the system.

The problem I have with air entering the system: Of course, air can pass through areas fluid cannot, but it's--not impossible, but--next to impossible for air to be sucked into the system. In order for air to enter the system, the fluid would have to at a lesser pressure than in the resivor. Fuild return isn't done by sucking fluid back in they resivor. Instead, fluid is forced back into the resivor by the return springs. That means that return fluid is under a higher pressure than the pressure in the resivor. A safe assumption would be that it would next to impossible for air--coming from a lower pressure area--to leak into an higher pressure area of fluid. So you might want to rule out sucking air from any point in the system.

The problem I have with the distribution block problem: The problem mentions leak. What is this leak? An extenal leak, or an internal leak withing the primary/secondary systems. Also, it's a different type of car. I don't know a thing about the braking system Steve Seekins mentions, but as Jim has stated, the brake light switch has little affect on the fluid travel in the system.

If I could take it one step further, IT HAS ZERO AFFECT ON THE WAY THE BRAKES WORK!!! The only role this part plays is that it allows the pistion to shift--because of the differences in hydralic pressure between the systems-- activating the brake light. Simply, it has zero affect on fluid flow, regardless to its position in the bore. It cannot suck air becuse the fluid is under positive pressure regardless to which direction of flow.

Okay, we have eliminated the master cylinder, but I have to play hit or miss because I'm not there verifying the checks. Plugged hoses cause hard pedals, so hoses can be ruled out.

My question goes back to whether or not the shoes are properly set. Properly set shoes has always been a haze factor in itself, and different things work differently on different cars and different people working on them. For instance, Jim cannot get his car to gravity bleed. My car will gravity bleed like gas through a Holley. Jim has sucess with setting star adjustes by backing up. In all of my life, I have never been able to get one click on a star adjuster, and I know many guys that are in my camp.

When you say the shoes are where they should be, which formula are you using as far as properly set shoes?

Also how are the drums? If they have been turned quite a bit, you're going to have a low pedal. Even if the drum is within specks, you can have a low pedal, another reason why out of speck drums should hit the s/can.

I have always loved the various methods in various books. To simplify, the book says to tighten them until the wheel locks, setting the shoes and hardware to their proper positions. Then the adjuster is backed off however many clicks

But there is a problem with the definition of lock-up. Because brake application is gradient, and locked up for turning it by hand, compared to locked up to the vehicle's momentum are totally different. Also, my definition of wheel lock-up will vary greatly with Gorillia Monsoon's definition of lock-up.

Let's throw some more into the equasion--just to keep it fun. The shoes and drums don't match and the variance can be pretty signifigant, meaning that lock up can be long before total contact of the shoes and drums.

In the earlier years, I too ran around with unsatisfactory brakes, meaning a super low pedal, and it took a number of years for me to develop my own technique of coming up with an intitial setting for new shoes.

Just a little loose on the adjustment will net a pedal on the floor. If they are not dragging, they are too loose, and the pedal will be on the floor. I cannot speak for other cars, but on this car--unleess you can figure out what tension the technical writers were using when they tighten until lock up . . . or you can get the star adjusters to work--this is the way the brakes have to be set up. And this is the reason so many people potty mouth drum brakes.

To set the shoes properly, they need to have signifigant drag on the drums--not a freewheeling spinning wheel making a yink, yink, yink sound. If you don't have a serious grind on new shoes, they aren't tight enough. It's hard to describe how tight of a grind you need on the intitial setting, but it's one hell of a lot tighter than most people think. The thing is that the grind/tension must be equal on both sides. The best way to describe the setting is that the wheel should barely spin, a little tighter than freewheel, with a signifigant/heavy drag.

Actually, it needs to be tighter than the intial setting I use, but I'm conservative on the intial setting because it has to generate a fair amount of heat. If you do the lock up then back off, the wheel is almost impossible to turn. So the book is probabally right because the mechanic isn't going to do mulitple adjustmetns.

Try this shoe setting, and see where the pedal sits because there is a huge difference in pedal height between heavy drag and freewheel. If you have somewhat satisfactory pedal, test them at low speed. (You might not have a super high pedal because the shoes may not be in complete contact with the drums.) If the brakes stop the car, do a series few fairly agressive 40 to 0 stops. Often, after a few agressive stops, even without driving any distance, you can raise the car, spin the wheels, and they will freewheel, or freewheel with a yink, yink, yink, of drag. If they freewheel, tighten them up until you get some drag.

I'm not as agressive with the setting as a professional who knows how to set up 4 wheel drum brakes. (It's getting where there aren't any professionals who know how to set up drum brakes because drum brakes are pretty much extinct.) So it takes me 3 to 4 adjustments to get the shoes seated. If you feel a little reserved with the heavy drag, you can be even more conservative, do settings with a ever so slight drag, and do more adjustmetns as the shoes seat. But you need more than a freewheel with a yink, yink, yink. There has to be some drag, or you'll never get the pedal off of the floor.

Once you have the shoes seated, the end setting with be freewheeling with just a slight yink, yink, yink, but the pedal will be tall, with practically zero travel before the brakes apply. The tall pedal allows the full use of the hydralic powe and will give the car incredibally agressive braking power.

You might be able to get a proper setting by doing as Jim says, backing and braking. It's supposed to work, and if you look at the set-up of the adjuster, it's a no brainer that it's supposed to work, but I have never had any luck using this method because my uncle is named Mr. Murphy.

Normal driving is supposed to cause the brakes to adjust as they wear. I don't have such luck, so I do have to do one brake adjustment about half way through the life of the shoes. If I do a second adjustment, I'm pretty much planning on new shoes in the short future.