After a drive with my 67 DeVille. I noticed that one of the front wheels was warmer than the other side. I lifted the car up and manually spun the front wheels.
On the warmer side there was a slight brake drag. while on the other side the wheel spun completely freely.
I did not notice any problem while braking and had the impression that the brakes worked evenly, as the car did not pull in any direction.

I then opened up the front brakes which were open for the last time when the front suspension was done many years ago by a shop. They had to disassemble the complete brakes when they did the front suspension back in 2007.

Before disassembly of the front suspension I took a lot of pictures, which I printed for the shop to make sure that they would reassemble everything correctly again. I marked the colours of everything for them on the pictures. It was completely clear where everything has to go with lot of detailed pictures of all the little details. This "professional" shop specialised in the restoration of American cars, had already messed up the brakes one time before, and whenever I applied the brake, the brake shoes would become looser, as they had installed the brake adjusters on the wrong side… Back then I barely made it back home and then repaired the brakes myself…

When I now opened up the brakes, it became very clear that they put everything back together totally incorrectly. It somehow worked - but the self adjusters were completely dysfunctional, as they mixed up the springs and replaced the self adjusters with incorrect ones…
As they installed the big yellow spring incorrectly (at the wrong side of the car!!) it was totally worn out as well.

I got a used self adjuster, special washer and spring from Honest Johns Cadillac corner, which another Cadillac friend from the USA delivered on his European trip.

I could then put everything back together correctly.
I still can’t believe that the shop messed up my brakes two times in a row, and I’m relieved that I no longer have to go to this shop and can now do this kind of work all by myself.

This is one of the many detailed pictures I provided to the shop to make sure they would reassemble the brakes correctly… They failed miserably!

This is one of the many detailed pictures I provided to the shop to make sure they would reassemble the brakes correctly… They failed miserably!

This is how the last shop which worked on my brakes assembled my right front brake… I will never let a "professional" touch my car again… They used the wrong spring and non fitting front adjusters. To make things worse they attached the wrong spring to the wrong holes in the brake shoes which stretched the spring and made it unusable. They also mixed up al the small springs…

detailed instructions from the shop manual

Tags:1967 Cadillac DeVille, 1967 Cadillac Repair Tip, Front brakes, Color Coded Springs, Drum brakes, Self adjusters