[Parkman51]

Today's job was balancing the brakes - making sure that they all braked with approximately the same force. I suspect that they're somewhat out of round - each wheel 'drags' a bit at some point during its rotation - but this I expect will correct itself as the high points wear off during driving.

Here was the procedure:
I started with the front wheels, since they're free-spinning, and not complicated by the drivetrain or the emergency brake. I jacked the front of the car off the ground, and spun the wheels by hand until I felt like I had a good understanding of the force required to produce a given rotation. The driver's wheel was noticeably looser than the passenger, so I tightened its adjustment spring by one or two notches and checked the rotational resistance. When both were fairly equally free, I applied a consistent force to the brake pedal and rechecked to make sure that, as the brake applied, the resistance increased consistently across both sides of the car. (See photograph below. I used a reversible clamp and a spare board.)
Then I dropped the front back down, chocked the wheels, and jacked up the back. After releasing the emergency brake and putting the transmission in neutral, I was able to rotate the back wheels as I had done the front ones. To be sure I was getting an accurate picture of the resistance on each side, I used some 2x4s to stop the rotation of the opposing wheel. The difference here was more pronounced. The driver's wheel was very loose, and the passenger wheel was very tight. I loosened the passenger wheel 2 notches, and tightened the driver's by about 4 (for some reason, the driver's rear wheel has an adjustment gear with half-size teeth, so I really tightened it about 8 notches, but 4 is a more useful comparative measurement). Once the wheels spun about the same, I made sure that the brake force applied equally by means of the emergency brake, withdrawing it 5 clicks at a time and checking each side. It took 15 clicks for the wheels to lock up.
Then I dropped the rear back down and took the car out for a neighborhood drive. It performed finely, and the brakes were noticeably better. The steering wheel no longer drags to the right when braking, and they're a little more responsive too.

One question today: The emergency brake has to get pulled out quite far to achieve proper braking force. Is there a procedure to tighten the response on the emergency brake? It does work serviceably as-is, so is it worth adjusting?