Couple more thoughts:
Out of courtesy to you, they should have phoned you once they got your truck
on the alignment rack and found so much ball jt wobble in the front end they
couldn't do an accurate alignment job and have also told you at that point
the price for the parts and the estimate of labor. Maybe if you were
intending to sell the truck soon you would not have elected any such repairs?
Anyway, that should have been your judgement to make.
On the other hand regarding the condition of your braking system, while it is
a financial jolt to say the least, look at it this way--------------they may
have saved you a costly collision or even your life or that of another. Your
truck was clearly in need of some serious attention.
The rear Dakota drum brakes are supposed to be "self-adjusting." The system
to do this is crude and first appeared on Chrysler vehicles when the all new
1960 Valiant came on the market. It is little changed. It works albeit
poorly if you get on a empty parking lot of a closed down K-Mart, start
backing up rather rapidly while stabbing very hard the brake pedal, enough to
peel rubber each time. Each stab is supposed to bring the adjusting
starwheel up one tighter notch. Invariably if this does happen then one rear
wheel adjusts better than the other.
I've never relied on the setup but make it a point every 9k mi when I rotate
my tires to check the adjustment on each rear drum and with an adjusting tool
take up the slack in each wheel properly. You may have been a victim here of
incorrectly adjust rear shoes.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 06 2004 - 11:47:25 EST