Reply To: The 1935 845 Pierce Arrow

[George Teebay]

I’ve put 15,000 miles on my 1934 in 12.5 years and have not needed to address the power brake lining, which was quite fresh when I bought the car.

One word of warning about the 1933-35 power brakes that apparently no one else has yet mentioned: Unlike the setup on virtually any other car, the brake pedal does not drop as the wheel brake linings wear. Accordingly, my own maintenance schedule specifies a wheel brake adjustment every 3,000 miles. You CAN detect when you need a wheel brake adjustment by making a habit of noticing how far back you must pull the hand brake lever to set the parking brake–when the lever travels to about 30 degrees behind vertical, it’s time to adjust the wheel brakes as described in the recent PASB article, and that’s a reasonably quick and easy process especially after you’ve done it the first time.