Drum Brakes are the devils work

"Deal Killer - Powered by Focus" (dealkiller-ii) 10/03/2016 at 22:33 • Filed to: None

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I spent the vast majority of my weekend finally fixing the rear brakes on my Focus. It is my first foray into the mechanics of drum brakes. What a complete cluster fuck these things are compared to the utter simplicity of disc brakes. It took me maybe four hours total to replace the rotors and pads, yet all weekend to complete the replacement of the drums, shoes and wheel cylinders of the rear wheels. It did not help that one cylinder had let go and had been leaking brake fluid for some time, with the resultant black goo being rather thick in the internal workings of the drum. But, Christ on crutch, how are drum brakes easier or cheaper for a manufacturer to install than a set of discs? Springs, clips, shoes, adjustment bar and wheel cylinders, or a rotor, two pads and a caliper. And, to top it all off, I get it all put together, looks good, feels good, but I did not know about the ABS sensor ring that has to be swapped from the old drums to the new ones. So, now my ABS and brake warning lights are lit up, which means I have to pull the drums off, install new sensors and hope that solves the problem. At least my car now stops in a straight line with a nice, solid brake pedal. Next up, motor mounts, tires & a much needed alignment. Then, my wife’s Town & Country is up for brakes & rear shocks. Being frugal and doing your own wrenching sure is a time suck.

Mattbob > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 22:39

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Haha i did the same thing with the sensor ring on my focus. Luckily i hadnt thrown it out yet. Doing drums is way easier if you have the special spring tools.

MM54 > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 22:43

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I’m comfortable doing drum brakes and can appreciate their relative simplicity in that they’re self-energizing and thus require much less hydraulic pressure. Most of the parts are also very simple (hence cheap) being stamped steel and other junk castings.

That said, it baffles me how in this day and age it’s still cheaper for a manufacturer to put drums on the back of a car than some little discs.

XJDano > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 22:47

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I still have not done mine on Equinox.

Busslayer > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 22:52

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Drum brakes are black magic to me. My ‘05 Focus has 155k miles on the drums so I think I basically have no rear brakes. But I don’t think it makes much difference since they don’t do much anyway.

How did it take 4 hours to do the pads and rotors?

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 22:57

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Callipers are fairly complex to machine, needing a large piston to seal properly (generally more than one so there’s passages to get fluid around), guide pins that slide smoothly, etc, not to mention the rotor needs two surfaces machine, typically it’s vented making casting more complex, etc. With drum brakes, everything is cast or stamped and there are two surfaces that need machined, one is the wheel cylinder (just a through drill really) and the other is the inner surface of the drum. Simple, crude, precision isn’t a huge deal, cheap. There’s a reason wheel cylinders cost $20 and callipers cost $100.

Deal Killer - Powered by Focus > Busslayer 10/03/2016 at 23:04

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It took me four hours because I’ve never done a brake job before & I took my time to do it right. Four hours from jacking the car up, pulling everything apart, consulting Youtube to make sure I’m doing it right, and have a beer or two in between. I’m not on the clock or anything. And, honestly, if you take your time and have some patience, the rear drums aren’t really that bad. It did take me 30 - 45 minutes to get the old drums off, and if you’re not replacing wheel cylinders, which are a pain in the ass, it would take you much less time. Just remember to set the adjustment correctly, or the new drum won’t fit over the shoes. That’s one lesson I learned.

Busslayer > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 23:26

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Props for taking on drum brakes for your first brake job. I’ve done lots of disc brake jobs but drums scare me so I won’t touch them.

DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 23:29

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Just to make you feel better I’ll tell you the story about my first foray into drum brakes.

I’m in the Military and we’re not allowed to work on our cars in the barracks parking lot. We have to go to a garage on post and pay $3 dollars an hour to work on our cars, which normally isn’t a big deal.

I’d done plenty of disc brakes, but never drums. After watching a YouTube video and reading the Haynes manual I figured I should be able to do it in 1-2 hours easy peazy. So I get to the shop a little over two hours before they close and get to work. Anyway it took me a little over an hour to do the first side and with the shop only open for 30 more minutes I payed the $5 over night storage fee and decided to come back and finish it after work the next day.

Well the next day I got stuck on gate guard (scanning ID’s of people coming onto post) and due to my schedule I wasn’t able to make it back to the shop while they were open for 3 or 4 days.

How I got fucked was the shop is open for about 10-12 hours during the day. They charged me $3 for every hour of those days plus the $5 overnight fees. All in all I payed over $200 to do those stupid drum brakes myself.

Pich, with Z32 now featuring Civic [Si] / No > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/03/2016 at 23:34

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In high school they gave us a bucket full of parts that may or may have be a full drum brake assembly, it was up to us to put it all together and make sure it worked, it did.

sonicgabe > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/04/2016 at 00:10

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I invented new curse words the last time I did rear drums. Things had gone fairly well, until... at the very end of one side, while using a screwdriver to get some damn clippy thing in place... the screwdriver slipped and went right through the cylinder boot. Fuck. No, I didn’t say “fuck”. What came out of my mouth was a torrent of syllables that had never been placed together in that order before. I was speaking in swearing tongues. The violently angry jibberish flowed from my mouth, mirroring the the flow of break fluid from the boot puncture. Fuck.

BoulderZ > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/04/2016 at 01:11

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Nice work taking on drums! My first brake job, which was also my first solo auto work beyond an oil change, was the front disc and rear drums on my Toyota truck. I was in college, and poor, so the choice was DIY or no more truck. The drums were awful in a way, and simple in a “50 easy steps!” way. Of course, I didn’t have the ABS issues to work with (1989, so...). The upside was that, though the first time took me most of a day, the second time was a quick job (kind of like the timing chain, now that I think about it). I still have the truck. I wonder if I’m due for a brake job? Hmmm.

Roundbadge > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/04/2016 at 08:09

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My first (and only) experience with drums was on a ‘90 or so Mercury Topaz not quite 10 years ago. They weren’t in terrible condition, but needed to be done. My FIL helped, as he had experience. The brakes themselves weren’t awful to work on, but we noticed the back right was making noise after we put everything back together and test drove it. While attempting to figure it out, we broke the rusty brake line, then decided we’d had enough and junked it.

We’d had the car 3 weeks, and not once did it run trouble-free. There was always something wrong. After chasing gremlins for weeks, the rusty brake line was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Autofixation > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/04/2016 at 13:05

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Is it a first generation Focus? Those suck because the drum and hub assembly are one piece, you can’t just take off the drum like most cars, you have to take off the four bolts holding the hub to the knuckle and take everything off.

Autofixation > Deal Killer - Powered by Focus 10/04/2016 at 13:07

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Yeah, drums aren’t so bad once you’ve done them a few times. The right tools help, there are tools designed specifically for pulling the springs.

Nisman > Busslayer 10/04/2016 at 15:19

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I did the rears on my car a few weeks ago and it took me four hours start to finish. Let me tell you how. Rust. 120k miles on these brakes here in Cleveland Ohio. Honda rotor screws had to be drilled. Had to use heat on a few of the bolts. I broke the entire rotor in half trying to pound it off. It was a nightmare. I also had to grind the rust off of the caliper slider pins. It all adds up.