I berking hate drum brakes.

Girlfriends Corolla was making a horrible screeching from the rear brakes. Hmmm... Pop the wheel off, and see... Drum brakes. Damnit.

I determine that new shoes are needed. I go on down to my friendly advancedpepzone, and ask, dear friendly advancedautoboy, could you get me a set a brake shoes for an 04 Toyota Corolla? He kindly obliges, and I go back home. Then I get the car in the air, and promptly return to said autopepzone for brakleen.

Back to the car. Reading in the Chiltons manual, because I've never done drum brakes before, because why in the world do people still use drum brakes when discs have to be about the same cost and are much easier and work better, I get the old shoes off and everything is merry.

I get the first shoe on, yay! There was much rejoicing. By which I mean I stood up and walked around the parking lot for three minutes trying to get feeling back in my leg after it had fallen asleep.

I am trying to connect the spring to the front shoe. And I hit the damn sleeve on the cylinder. Brake fluid everywhere, cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria.

At this point it is starting to get late and I have other stuff that needs to get done--aside from this, this is not a safe apartment complex after about 5:00PM. I let out a blue streak, take off the first shoe that I had put on, throw it back in the box along with all the hardware, and put the drum and wheel back on--no brakes whatsoever now in the back right. I move the car into a single parking spot (it was taking up two), obviously the pedal goes to the floor.

I hate drum brakes. Now I've gotta get the damn thing fixed by Friday, but now I don't want to touch it. And of course the shop that I trust is 6 miles away and the damn thing is an auto, so I can't risk driving it as is.

I berkeleying hate drum brakes.

/rant.

You can do it. If you're not familiar w/ drum brakes take a phone pic before disassembling each side, that'll come in handy for reassembly. Follow the manual. Brakleen is your friend. A cheap drum brake tool kit oughta be around $20 or so but you can do it w/o it. You're definitely gonna want to pop for the shoe hold down spring tool tho. Clean parts thoroughly, replace any questionable hardware as it's cheap while you're in there.

Good luck

I don't understand how some folks can have such a hard time with simple technology.

BTW, with no shoes in the assembly, you just blew the cups out of the wheel cylinders. No driving anywhere for you.

i agree to both the simple technology statement, and the berkeleying hate them statement. that being said,m both my autocross cars have rear drums, and my dailys have 4 wheel discs. once a drum is rebuilt, theyre good for just about infinity.

Trans_Maro wrote: I don't understand how some folks can have such a hard time with simple technology. BTW, with no shoes in the assembly, you just blew the cups out of the wheel cylinders. No driving anywhere for you.

Similarly, I don't understand how some folks can have such a hard time with simple calculus and graph theory, or how to do a backwards crossover or take a slap shot.

Yes, the technology is simple--I understand how to do it. But I don't work on them for a living; as a matter of fact, I've never worked on them before at all.

The trick is to remove both drums and use one as a pattern for the other.

I've messed with them for decades and I hate them too. Discs are just so much easier.

In my opinion there's never an excuse for drums. Too complicated for what they do.

Actually you probably have brakes. The abs and proportion valve should block off the rear circuit giving front brakes after a pump. Just make sure the reservoir is full and drive incredibly carefully to your shop of choice. Your looking at a full bleed of the system now so you took an easy job and made it suck. I wouldn't want to do that in an apartment parking lot.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: The trick is to remove both drums and use one as a pattern for the other.

^This^
That's the way I was taught to do it. Grew up doing maintenance on our own cars and back then most had at least rear drums. I have owned and worked on cars that had front & rear drums. Tedious and more time consuming than disks but was the technology of the time. Had an uncle that restored older cars - like 30's - 40's era. Those had mechanical drum brakes, no hydraulics. Interesting and certainly more complex but again did the job and was the technology of the time. Glad I never had to work on those though. Yeah, nowadays I do prefer disks and all my modern cars are 4-wheel disk. My antiques/classics still have drum rear. And getting ready to delve into (again) the brakes on my 70 Opel GT. Last time was to replace the hydraulics, this time to replace pads/shoes.

mtn wrote: Yes, the technology is simple--I understand how to do it. But I don't work on them for a living; as a matter of fact, I've never worked on them before at all.

Point taken but do you have a manual for this car?

There's usually a pretty good diagram in the manual.

I really like drums. Really. Super long-life. Easy to work on, really, and cheap. Much cheaper to service than discs.

Weird, I guess.

I did mine on my Corolla, bought what i need it, jacked up the back, removed both wheels and looked at the other one as a guide. Where I live rear disks tend to rust and seize up which means spending more money.

nocones wrote: Actually you probably have brakes. The abs and proportion valve should block off the rear circuit giving front brakes after a pump. Just make sure the reservoir is full and drive incredibly carefully to your shop of choice.

Ok, lets say that this worked like it should have. I need to go get some brake fluid, fill up the reservoir, and I should be good to go for a short and extremely careful drive to somebody who knows what they're doing? I assume that I'd be able to "test it" by checking to see if the brake pedal goes to the floor or not?

nocones wrote: Your looking at a full bleed of the system now so you took an easy job and made it suck. I wouldn't want to do that in an apartment parking lot.

I am pretty great, aren't I? And I loathe living in apartments and the facilities the provide for repair. I have to sweep out broken glass about once a month in hers. Girlfriend is out of hers and into a house on the 14th or 15th; I'm out of mine (which is admittedly very nice) and into a house with a garage on May 1.

Funny thing is, Carl (guy instructing in the Integra R on Saturday and a Honda Master Tech) told me there was good chance of this happening.

I dislike drums, and find them more difficult than disk, but I suspect that's just a lack of familiarity; I can count on one hand the number of times I have changed drum brakes.....Each was a challenge

Caraddict wrote: I did mine on my Corolla, bought what i need it, jacked up the back, removed both wheels and looked at the other one as a guide. Where I live rear disks tend to rust and seize up which means spending more money.

Haha, yeah, I had that on my Miata. I managed to turn what should be a maximum 2 hour job into a 12 hour job because I could not get the rotors off.

Trans_Maro wrote: Point taken but do you have a manual for this car? There's usually a pretty good diagram in the manual.

I have a Chiltons manual, and it does have a pretty good diagram for it, especially for a Chilton's manual. Again, I knew what I was doing (following the manual), I just did not intend to slip and hit the cylinder sleeve.

Ok, you hit the cylinder sleeve.

I don't quite understand, did you jam the spring into the end of the wheel cylinder, forcing the opposite cup out the other side and that caused the fluid to go everywhere?

If so, clean the parts that fell out and stuff them back in this order: Spring in the middle, rubber cup with the lip facing inward, metal piston thingy, then rubber cylinder cap and pushrod. Same for the opposite side of the cylinder if it fell out as well.

If you simply poked a hole in the rubber cylinder boot with the spring and fluid came out, you have a bigger problem. The wheel cylinder was leaking and needed to be rebuilt or replaced anyway. For something like a corolla, just buy a new wheel cylinder, they're likely under $30.00.

If you somehow managed to jam the spring into the wheel cylinder and gouge the bore, causing a leak. Then you're borked anyway and still need a cylinder.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what went wrong and how. I've had jobs like this where everything went absolutely sideways on me so I feel your pain.

Sorry about the earlier post, a lot of folks seem to have some sort of superstition regarding drum brakes and I just jumped to conclusions.

a trick my grandpa taught me was to pull the pieces off and lay them on the floor in approximately the same orientation that you took them off the car.. also, do one side at a time so you have the other side as a reference point..

while it apart, it's a good idea to take the star wheel adjuster thingies apart to lube them up and attack the backing plate with a stiff wire brush.. put a small dab of grease wherever the shoes contact the backing plate- just enough to lube it up a little bit but not so much that it gets onto the friction material.

i can do a typical GM drum setup in a few minutes if i have my proper tools, 15 minutes if i have a vise grip and a big screwdriver and the springs still have good tension to them..

In reply to novaderrik:

YES, THAT, 99.95% of drum brake issues that aren't blown wheel cylinders stem from stuck adjusters.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to novaderrik: YES, THAT, 99.95% of drum brake issues that aren't blown wheel cylinders stem from stuck adjusters.

and most wheel cylinders blow out because of inoperable or unused automatic adjusters that make the shoes travel too far before making contact with the drum... is it really too much to ask to just use the brakes to come to a complete stop in reverse before slamming it in drive to let the self adjusters do their thing?

JCWhitney sells a took kit for ~$20, worth every penny in bandaids. Mtn, it's nuts & bolts; you're making it harder than it is.

novaderrik wrote: a trick my grandpa taught me was to pull the pieces off and lay them on the floor in approximately the same orientation that you took them off the car.. also, do one side at a time so you have the other side as a reference point..

I've done hundreds of drum brake jobs and I still do this. No matter what.
The other tip I can offer (others may have, I didn't read every post) is to get the proper tools. Pliers and a flat blade screwdriver can work, but it can also allow a serious leakage of blood.

I hate them. Everything in my driveway (save for my Dakota) has 4 wheel discs, even the Trans Am.

Any resolution to this?

I'm curious about what was the final result.

Shawn

Also, dont forget the hold down tool, you'll take a hold down cup to the face several times if you dont.