left brake dragging. Was OK but after sitting for a couple of weeks left brake pedal hard and high and left wheel(brake) dragging severely. Any advice?
Welcome to HEF Plaxico. :drinkup Does it still drag when you reverse the direction you're driving?
Brake drags severly forward or reverse.
Kinda sounds like what happens when a clutch facing comes loose and jams up, you go from having a "slippy" clutch to a "grabby" one instantly. That would explain the hard and high pedal also. Not knowing a thing about case brakes, this is just a thought. Inspect the pedal and linkage first, but I'd wager it's a pad coming apart, might be able to back off the adjustment and let it wear itself back down?
I understand Plaxico, but I'm asking something very specific, does it release momentarily the very moment you reverse direction? If so, ramps or balls are worn out inside expanding brake drum. If it just drags all the time in either direction, possibly a stuck brake slave cylinder, stuck pivot pins on the brake band, or all the conical springs broken on expanding brake drum. The best way to gain full access to those units is pull the floor plate in the operators cab. The service can be done without doing this, but it makes it a helluva lot easier and gives you way better access to view and remove the slave cylinder adjusting nut on the brake rod.
Sounds like an obstruction in the residual valve in the master cyl(hard high brake pedal). Not sure on your model# but a common cause is the use of dot 3 when hyd oil is the proper fluid.
Need some more info, the E's had three different brake systems. The first had a master cylinder with a spring retainer over the master cylinder top, the brake housings had a cam arm at the top with a small wheel cylinder that pushed against the cam arm, used the two brake disks inside. The next used the IV system on top of the master cylinders, had the plastic covers with the feed hoses, (green) I seem to remember, they used the same two brake discs but the housing does not have the cam lever (large round cylinder on top, around 3" round x 4.5" tall). The last had the IV system, but with wet brakes, multi disc inside and also carried the big brake slave cylinder (3 x 4.5). On the brake housing. They changed the lining material and bonding adhesive along the way for better service life. They also switched the parking brake system when they changed the cam type brake housings. If it has the M/C top that can be removed, like said, someone may have added DOT3 instead of tch fluid. I would first loosen the brake line hose at the slave cylinder and see if the problem is still there with the brake dragging and work your way back to the master cylinder, or into the brake housings, those linings on the later would come apart and wedge the disks and plates also. S/N may help also
Dot 3 added to the system would cause both brakes to stick as the dot 3 swelled the seals etc. Most E series with sticking brakes had problems that were described well by Willie59.
Thanks to all that responded to my problem with the brake. Turned out that the slave cylinder was stuck"on". That being corrected it is working well. Very pleased I did not get into the discs, balls,springs etc. Thank you guys VERY much.