vandelden21

Ive had my 96 cherokee for a few weeks now. Brakes have felt fine probably about due but not to bad.

Well yesterday it felt like they were getting touchy and I was sliding in the rain.

Today on my way to work they are extremely touchy and feels like the passenger rear tire is locking up if I get on the brakes. And im not getting on the very hard at all.

Any ideas???

MtnHermit

You bet!!!

Your/All XJ's come with self adjusting brakes that don't work. If you live in the rust belt, expect a lot of rust.

Remove both rear drums, inspect for shoe and drum wear. You can do a 95% adjustment by turning the star wheel and fitting the drum. Keep adjusting until the drum won't fit, then back off a bit.

You'll be astonished how much that improves your braking, I was.

vandelden21

So your saying its probably just the adjustment?

sycoglitch

The adjuster is a start. Clean em, make sure the plugs are installed on the rear o the drums. My drums are at the end of their life and are shot. Hardware sucks and they try to luck up on dry land. I'm doing te disc brake swap in 2-3 weeks.

Open em, clean em and adjust them

peep

I'v had to pull the drums and hose out the mud on occassion.
Also disassembled the adjusters, freed them up, slathered with antiseize, adjust. All will be good, but in 5-6 months free the adusters up again, they seem to be destined to stop working in self setting mode.

sycoglitch

Everytime I offroad they need degreasing and such afterwards. I hate drum brakes. Can't wait to retrofit mines. No more issues

vandelden21

Ill give it a try. Thanks for the input clutch and brake doctors freaked me out. They said they see them lock up when the wheel cylinder starts leaking... the first and only time ive had a wheel cylinder leaking was in a iroc Camaro. Needless to say I had no brakes almost slammed into a bmw and had no ebrake. Had a flashback to that when they said that lol

NewJerseyXJ609

Check your fronts too... Cherokees have a real bad tendency to have stuck calipers. I would go over each wheel position and check everything out if I were you.

Radi

They may be correct, a leaky cylinder soaks the shoes with brake fluid making them grabby. This is a good reason to open them up and look.
The rear cylinders are a $10 part. I just changed my rears along with the lines up to the rear splitter block- took less than an hour per side.

vandelden21

Thanks for the input. Ill look into it.

Update I noticed it only locks up the first stop or two. After that they seem normal like they have to be warmed up?

sycoglitch

Still open them and look to be sure. A good cleaning is healthy for drum brakes