DIY Rear Drum Brake Shoe Replacement

[joshman]

As with my other DIY brake write-up, if you have ABSOLUTELY ANY doubts about performing this work yourself, then don't do it, it's not worth it if you do it wrong. Employ a professional to do it. Another thing. Take your own photos through out the whole process of dismantling, it'll make it a lot easier to work out how it all goes back together.

Materials:
- Brake Shoes (part#: N1726)

Tools:
- Garden Hose
- brake cleaner
- Rags
- Pliers
- Needle-nose Pliers
- Flat Blade Screw drivers (one large, one small)
- 'Fasty' strap (cam-buckle tie-down)
- Big Hammer
- 2x Chassis Stands


The tools:

First things first, park your truck on stable flat ground, chock your front wheels, ideally in front, because as you jack up the rear of the car, the weight will shift forwards. Crack the nuts of your rear wheels both sides before you jack the car up. Jack up the rear axle and put your chassis stands under the u-bolt brackets. and rest the rear axle on that. Make sure the handbrake is off.
pull the wheel off the side you're working on. i put the wheel down in a manner that i could sit on it as i worked. with the wheel off, you're presented with the Drum Hub.

The hub might be held on with some small screws, or not, either way, the hub might be a little hard to remove. if it is difficult, give it a few good hits with the hammer to loosen it up and pull the drum off.

after pulling the drum off, hose the entire drum out. brake dust is quite bad for your health, DON'T USE A BRUSH. the hose is your best option.

This is what a drum brake looks like. The first step is to loosen off the braking system so you can remove everything, the method i used is to lift the little holding pin and use the needle-nose pliers to wind the shoe adjuster back to remove tension from the springs.

 

[joshman]

Alright, the next step is to remove the retaining springs, grab the springs with the pliers and yank.

After they're off, remove the little shoe adjusting bracket. Next wrap your fasty strap around the brakeshoes to hold them all together.

next comes removing the shoe retaining clips, these are particularly dastardly, but not overly difficult, the fasty strap is a massively helpful tool for removing and replacing the retaining clips.
the easier way i found was to grab your pliers and just push the retaining clip in, with one hand, while simultaneously twisting the retaining pin to release it. the back of the pin can be accessed from the rear of the drum brake. Don't lose any of the bits, theres should be a cup shaped disc, the spring, the pin and the clip top

here's a close up of the retaining clip, so you can better grasp what i mean.

 

[joshman]

The pieces

After both retaining clips are off, take the fasty strap off and the shoes should just fall away. there's a spring at the bottom of the shoes that holds them together. just disengage the shoes off the spring.

One shoe should just come completely away, the other shoe will be attached to the handbrake line via another large bracket. This bracket is held onto the shoe with a clip. do what you must to remove this clip.

This pin, is the most difficult part of the whole operation.

My method for moving this pin to the new set of shoes, is neither strictly correct, nor favourable - so a warning for the young players, it's probably best to get someone else to do this part.

I first removed the pin with the large hammer (it will drop out with some percussive persuasion), then i drilled out the respective hole in the new brake shoe till the pin just fit in, it was a snug fit, but easy enough to get in. i used a metric 9.5mm drill bit. ideally the pin should be pressed in.

which ever way you do it, make sure you get the pin in the right shoe and the right way round, here's where taking your own photos during disassembly come in handy.

while you've got everyhitng out of teh drum, this is a good time to spray around alot of brake cleaner and give everyhting a good wipe down.

 

[joshman]

alright, once you've got the pin in the correct shoe, replace the handbrake bracket and do-up the little retaining clip.

re-attach the spring joining the bottom of the shoes and put the shoes up into position, ensuring the tops of the shoes fit into the brake cylinder piston ends and all the pieces fit back as they should. now is the easiest time to put the shoe adjusting arm back in.

here's where i found one of the most difficult parts, putting the retaining clips back on the shoes. the easiest way, is to put the fasty strap back aroudn the shoes to hold them in place, so you can use both hands to attach each retaining clip.
assemble the cup/spring/clip part and put it over the hole in the shoe, hold in place with the pliers in a similar manner in which you removed it. with the other hand put the retaining pin in through teh back of the drum and reverse the process to re-engage the retaining clip. do the same for the other shoe.

remove the fasty strap. the simple way is to reverse the disassembly process. replace the shoe adjusting bracket and return springs.

we're almost there!

put the drum back on the wheel. if it's an easy fit, use a screw driver to adjust the shoes, just a few clicks for now.

then try re-fitting the drum. if still an easy fit, re-tweak the shoe adjuster. try re-fitting the drum. repeat this process until the drum only just fits over the shoes.

now, before you re-fit the drum for finals, give the entire show a spray down with brake cleaner, thoroughly coat everything. next i sprayed some silicone lubricant on the springs and all the moving parts… if you do this, be VERY careful to not get any on the shoe surface.

now, replace the drum and wheel, and give the shoe adjuster a final tweak using the rubber grommet on the back of the drum to gain access to the adjuster ratchet.

and there you have it. new brake shoes.

here's a final photo for some show and tell, the surface condition of my old brake shoes, you can see what effect not cleaning them out regularly can have.

 

[tweak'e]

an important bit you missed....
before you pull the hub off you need to back off the brakes. you access this via the grommet at the back. if your hubs are worn they tend to have a lip which catches the pads when you try to get it off.
also the drum has two threaded holes in it. screw in 2 bolts and it will push the hub off.

 

[joshman]

an important bit you missed....
before you pull the hub off you need to back off the brakes. you access this via the grommet at the back. if your hubs are worn they tend to have a lip which catches the pads when you try to get it off.
also the drum has two threaded holes in it. screw in 2 bolts and it will push the hub off.

My hubs have no lip, and releasing the handbrake was enough to ensure the hubs came off, and smacking the hub with a hammer was enough to loosen it all up for me. Obviously every truck is different, and not being a pro mechanic of any kind, I can't speak in generalities and proper methods, only what worked for me on my particular vehicle.

 

[tweak'e]

thats cause your pads are not even worn let alone the hubs !

i bet all D40 owners are looking at the lack of wear with envy

 

[Lil_Menace]

Thank you very much, Will be giving this a go very soon.

 

[dan1104]

Does anyone know where you can get new retainers and springs from? I'm in WA but willing to order from interstate.

 

[joffo81]

Great write- up Joshman. And thanks also to Tweake for the tips for removing the drum. I know about the groove u are talking about. I just helped remove a set of hubs with over 300 thousand kms on them and they were really hard to get off but i didnt know about the threaded holes!

 

[06nav]

Can you loosen the bracken from the grommet?

 

[Rumpig]

You can't back the brakes off via the adjuster thru the grommet . It's designed so you can only wind them out. Its like a boat trailer winch, unless you fip the latch over it only winds up.

 

[06nav]

You can't back the brakes off via the adjuster thru the grommet . It's designed so you can only wind them out. Its like a boat trailer winch, unless you fip the latch over it only winds up.

Thanks rumpig, ended up sorting it out. I never gave the rear drums attention after beach work so basically the hand brake seized on so I spent the weekend pulling everything apart and freeing it up

 

[OzAssAssin]

Joshman,
thanks mate this is the reason I like this site it's the efforts of people like you that make it worth while coming back time and time again.

Greatly appreciated all your efforts documenting with visual reference, top job.

 

[nakedape]

This was a great help. Two points of difference though:
1) Bendex shoes come with pins in them already - bonus
2) a hammer jammed between the shoe and the ground does
the same job as the strap - did for me at least.

 

[ShortyNavros]

Has anyone replaced the seals on that cylinder? Mine is leaking as needs some attention

 

[Iceman]

I believe these days you have to replace the whole cylinder. I assume its a safety thing... I know getting replacement seals for my classics is getting harder and harder and when you do find them they try to discourage seal changing. I now get cylinders sleeved in stainless and the seals last yonks if kept clean and fresh fluid in the system.

 

[ShortyNavros]

Can you loosen the bracken from the grommet?

You can actually loosen the bracket through the grommet if you cant get the hub off with the parking brake off, this is what the FSM recommends. Also as you can see via the pic you need two M8x1.25 bolts. You can use some of the earthing bolts ontop of the intake manifold from your engine bay as they are the correct size and pitch.

 

[ShortyNavros]

Also guys, I took some pics of wheel cylinders, left one is defintely leaking and the right one shows some serious signs of corrosion so I think I will need to replace, was thinking about doing both? My brake shoes are about 5.5mm thick which is heaps according to FSM 1.5mm is the min required. Also my Hubs appear to measure about 295 and 296mm internal diametres. They also have a lip as they were hard to remove and I had to back the adjuster off via the grommet before I could even remove them, is this the point where I should replace them?

Pics of the wheel cylinders

 

[Steve-D22]

This was a great help. Two points of difference though:
1) Bendex shoes come with pins in them already - bonus
2) a hammer jammed between the shoe and the ground does
the same job as the strap - did for me at least.

I just replaced a wheel cylinder and decided to do the shoes as well. The bendix shoe have a different diameter pin and I can't fit the anti reverse thing on without modifying it. I just put the old shoes back on for now. I checked the bendix website to make sure I have the correct shoes and I have. Anyone else had this issue? Mines a 06 D22 zd30.