Drum brakes need to die

"BaconSandwich is tasty." (baconsandwich) 05/08/2018 at 22:53 • Filed to: Drum brakes, Things I've never seen before, Emperor of the World

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I’ve been having a persistent squeak that happens whenever I release the brakes. Same thing happened last year, and a small shot of grease between the side of the brake shoe and the backing plate seems to fix it for a year or so. This isn’t the first time this has happened. But this time it was different.

Driver’s side went fine. Loosen lug nuts, jack up car, remove tire, remove drum, pry shoes away from backing plate, grease 6 points, put drum back, etc. Now for the passenger side...

For some reason the passenger side the drum wouldn’t fit back on. It’s then that I notice the small brace that runs between the two shoes (that slowly unscrews and widens itself when using the parking brake) has somehow lodged itself in a position it shouldn’t be. Commence a solid half hour of prying, pulling, hammering, etc. - the thing won’t go back. Check a few YouTube videos. Get incredibly frustrated. Get slightly calmed down my by wife. Have her come out, and give me a hand for a minute or two. (Two young kids - can’t leave them in the house alone for more than a minute or two at a time). In doing so, somehow we managed to press the brake while the drum was off, and it shot out brake fluid up my arm and across the garage. I’ve seen a few things in my day, but I’ve never seen that happen before. It sprayed out pretty good, and in doing so, probably let a small amount of air back into the line. Go back inside, try to calm down some more, then go back out to the garage. Eventually, with both of us pulling on things, we managed to get the small expanding brace thing back into position. But now the brakes are totally mushy, meaning that I need to bleed them. This also means Mrs. BaconSandwich now has to drive me to/from work tomorrow. That, or I have to carpool with a coworker, but he leaves earlier, meaning I won’t get to see my kids in the morning before I go to work. It also means we probably have to find a babysitter tomorrow night so that she can help me bleed the brakes without having to run into the house to check on the kids every few minutes.

Ugh. I hate drum brakes. Part of me hopes that whoever invented them died in an automobile accident - due to brake failure. There’s absolutely no reason why modern passenger cars need to have them. If I ever become emperor of the world, I’m going to ban drum brakes on all new passenger vehicles. (While I’m at it, I’ll also ban 1-ply toilet paper. That stuff is an abomination that society needs to be rid of).

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/08/2018 at 23:18

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Are you sure you didn’t somehow cheat an old gypsy woman out of a quart of brake fluid? I mean, I’m not asking, but I’m asking.

Tristan > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/08/2018 at 23:19

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This is also my current mood. One of the front wheel cylinders on my Studebaker puked brake fluid all over the shoes, making for some EXCITING braking. 3 weeks later, I’ve got 2 new front wheel cylinders ($50), new front shoes ($45+$26 shipping to and from the re-liner in NY. No one makes front shoes for this car), new rear shoes ($30), rebuild kits for the rear cylinders ($6), 2 cylinder hones ($40... I ruined the first one.), and I still need to go through the left rear brake and rebuild the master cylinder. At least they’re really simple in the way that they’re non-self-adjusting.

AdverseMartyr > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/08/2018 at 23:45

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brace thingy is strangely enough usually called a...wait for it... self-adjuster. Sounds like it did its job really well, maybe too well.

Disc brakes can be just as annoying. I’m thinking specifically about when a slide freezes up.

Nothing > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/08/2018 at 23:47

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Crazy that I have two vehicles, one a 1967, one a 2015, and both are front disc.rear drum.

NKato > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/09/2018 at 01:16

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I don’t suppose you live in the Puget Sound area?

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/09/2018 at 06:16

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A vehicle with rear drums and a CVT gearbox is my idea of hell. So is any dual cab pick up with rear drums...

random001 > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/09/2018 at 06:41

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Well, if it helps, I got those new wheels and tires on, and I’ve been to two shops and had them balanced three times, and they won’t balance. It makes me very sad.

shop-teacher > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/09/2018 at 07:17

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The rear drums on my truck are about due. I shall be paying my local indy mechanic to deal with that jibba-jabba.

AdverseMartyr > AdverseMartyr 05/09/2018 at 07:29

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Oh, you might want to buy a bleeder instead of spending the money on a sitter. Unless you’d rather spend money on a sitter than a justified expenditure for a tool that will only continue to save you money in the future (This excuse should hopefully be good enough to buy a good kit, and not the cheapo plastic bottle that uses a magnet.)

BigBlock440 > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/09/2018 at 08:04

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Not sure how cheap you’re sitters work for (Maybe free, but there’s still the time hassle) but these are probably cheaper.

Or these:

BaconSandwich is tasty. > NKato 05/09/2018 at 09:06

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Not quite. Southern Alberta.

NKato > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/09/2018 at 11:53

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If you’d been local, I’d help in a heartbeat.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > NKato 05/09/2018 at 18:50

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I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless!

BaconSandwich is tasty. > AdverseMartyr 05/09/2018 at 21:27

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We ended up dropping the kids off at the in-laws. Bled all 4 corners, but it still feels a little spongier than when I started. I think I’ll end up getting a bleeder kit. I just need to find a place that sells one locally, rather than waiting a week or two to get one shipped.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/09/2018 at 21:28

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Her name definitely wasn’t Madam Zeroni...

BaconSandwich is tasty. > Tristan 05/09/2018 at 21:30

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That’s brutal. I don’t suppose there’s any way to do a conversion kit to make it use more common parts?

BaconSandwich is tasty. > BigBlock440 05/09/2018 at 21:31

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I might just end up doing that. Tried bleeding them tonight, but they still feel a little spongier than they were before everything went awry.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > random001 05/09/2018 at 21:32

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That is sad. :(

BaconSandwich is tasty. > shop-teacher 05/09/2018 at 21:32

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I don’t blame you one bit!

Tristan > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/09/2018 at 22:40

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Not really. You can convert it to the later Bendix non-vented disc brakes that came on the Avanti and were optional on the Super Hawk and Super Lark, but I haven’t really looked into it. There’s a guy who builds front suspensions that replace the upper and lower control arms, converting the car to rack and pinion, ball joints and a mix of GM and Ford disc brakes, but the reviews are negative, saying it has very poor geometry leading to lots of bumpsteer. The stock drum brakes really aren’t too bad when working properly.

random001 > BaconSandwich is tasty. 05/10/2018 at 06:28

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