A Tale of Drum Brake Woes

[mcgarvey]

So yesterday afternoon I decided to do the rear brakes on my 2000 Mystique. They had close to 90k miles on them so I figured it was about time. I bought wheel cylinders, shoes, and new springs and hold-down pins. Now, mind you, I work on cars for a living (Toyotas), and normally something like this would take me an hour or so. I started about noon and I still didn't have it together at 7:30. First of all, whoever designed the adjuster is an idiot. Every other car in the world uses a star-wheel adjuster, where you can just pull the drum off, spin the adjuster all the way back, and everything is retracted. But no, on this car, we have a "knurled quadrant." Whatever that means. When I took everything apart, the adjuster fell apart into several pieces, and it wouldn't fit back together the way it was, since the spring kept popping off. Finally I rigged it to work again and started to reassemble the brakes with new shoes, but the spring never did fit quite right again. Who knows if it will every really "self-adjust." Then, to fit the leading shoe to the adjuster either requires some kind of superhuman finger strength and eyes on your finger tips, or some bent metal and a big hammer. Anyway, it was close to 7pm and I had both sides done, so I figured, let's throw the drums on and call it a day. Well, no, the drums wouldn't fit EVEN THOUGH BOTH SIDES WERE FULLY RETRACTED! I cannot for the life of me figure this out. In addition to the adjusters being all the way retracted, I had cut the drum on a lathe so its inside diameter was a little bigger. In the end, I hammered the drums on with a mallet, the shoes were left dragging against the drum, but I had to drive the car home, so I had no choice.

So the question is, is it always this hard or am I just an idiot?

[Big Jim]

Either you still have a problem with the adjuster (not likely) or the shoes are of a poor quality and way too thick.

[Matt R]

Same sort of problems on mine. You need to replace the drum itself; it's probably warped and even w/ machining it won't ever fit again right.

[AliasJerk]

Same sort of problems on mine. You need to replace the drum itself; it's probably warped and even w/ machining it won't ever fit again right.

this is why I purchased your rear disc conversion kit.

I HATE drum brakes, however, on anything BUT a contour I can replace each side in 10 minutes. Beat my shop teacher in high school at it, he wasnt too happy about that.

[Matt R]

Yeah I shoulda put that on, lol. It cost me a ton to do the rear brakes... all new hardware, new shoes, new wheel cylinders, new drums....

[mcgarvey]

this is why I purchased your rear disc conversion kit.

I HATE drum brakes, however, on anything BUT a contour I can replace each side in 10 minutes. Beat my shop teacher in high school at it, he wasnt too happy about that.

Yep, with a star wheel adjuster like EVERY other car in the world, it's a snap. Like you said, 10 minutes a side plus the drum cut. Not on these cars! I'd love to have rear disc brakes, not for the stopping power even but just to make replacing them so much easier.

[gary_jabo]

Hi;
I've had real problems with the rear drum brakes on my 1995 contour.
I use a long, thin screwdriver to relieve the spring tension on the
knurled quadrant and get the shoes to retract as much as possible.

But the real problem I had was that I could not get the self-adjuster
mechanism into place after I put on the new wheel cylinders.
I had to put the adjuster spanner in place on top of the axle below the
wheel cylinder before I attached the wheel cylinder to the backing plate.
Then I attached the shoes to the adjuster. Finally I had to fight
to get the springs on, particularly the U-shaped tension clips.

Why couldn't Ford use the well known circular "washer" with attached
spring so I could use my neat brake tool for that purpose.
All in all I think it is a really bad design.

And don't get me started on the parking brake adjustment on a
Chrysler T&C van. There isn't any.

Gary -- Atlanta

[mcgarvey]

Is anyone aware of another car that uses this rediculous design? I've not seen one, and I work on [import] cars for a living.