I don’t mind replacing shoes too much (ok yeah it sucks). The hard part for me is making sure the brakes are adjusted correctly.
If the car has self-adjusting shoes, you can crank on the parking brake a few times to adjust them or press hard on the brake pedal a few times. Do that while it is still in the air so you can check your work by turning the tire. The only issue is if you put them on too tight in the first place.
what if i failed at failure?
Drum brakes were the thing that finally taught me to take photos of something before and while I take it apart.
Happened to me more than once
Fuck drum breaks and fuck honda for putting them on my base model 2013 civic
Be happy you have them, there’s nothing worse than rusting discs in the rear that you can’t do anything about because there is too little force on them. Every inspection I shell out 200€ for new discs and pads in the rear, 400€ if I don’t have time.
I think you have an issue with your brake distribution box or your master cylinder if it has it’s the design that has seperate chambers for front and bake brakes.
Also make sure to grease all of the no braking contact points such as where the pads slide back and forth in the caliper. I try to do that once a year if I can.
I know, I know, I keep the brake saddles swimming nicely, but the rear brakes only get about 20% of the brake force and if you’re not hooning most of the braking is done by the engine anyway. I’d actually pay for drums in the rear and I’m a bit envious of VW id owners because they get them.
Dude, no way. This is not remotely normal!
Rotors can get rusty when you haven’t driven for a while, but it’s just cosmetic. That’s no reason to replace rotors. Even if you end up with a bit of grooving from bits of sand in the pads (especially on the rear discs) it’s no issue.
Something else is wrong, or your mechanic is taking you for a ride.
It really sounds like your brakes are screwed up. All around disc brakes aren’t THAT preferential to the front. Also, if your rear rotors aren’t really getting used and are just all rusty, why do you keep buying replacement rear rotors? Just take a wire wheel to them and slap them back on. Same with pads. Why are they being ruined every two years if they aren’t getting used?
All that aside, do you have small drum brakes for your ebrake in the rear, or is it only disc brakes? Many have a “drum in hat” setup where the e brake doesn’t use the disc brakes, but if you do have disk only, you could try moving a bit while you activate the e brake and see if it polishes off your rust and stuff. E brakes of either kind only lock back wheels.
I haven’t had a car with drums for a long time, but what I used to do was jack both sides up at the same time, place jack stands, but only do one side at a time. That way I had the other side available for reference in case something befuddled me.
And just to mention, https://charm.li/about.html has free online service manuals for almost every vehicle between 1982-2013 if you need one.
We have high resolution cameras in our pockets now. If you don’t know what you are doing with any machine, take pictures and more than you think you need.
That’s how I unfuck everything I try and fix, I just take a picture everytime something moves and try and retrace.
When I design electronics nowadays (that never works right at the first … few … tries), I don’t bother looking at the circuits anymore. I take pictures at several angles, and go try to find my mistakes at the computer screen.
It’s great, in that I can even write all over stuff if I want.
This is the method I used when I had the misfortune of doing drum brakes a couple times.
I did this on my truck and then realized the last guy didn’t know what he was doing and had the shoes on backwards. It’s a lot easier and makes more sense now after doing them a couple times.
Call me a pussy, but I don’t DIY things which can kill me if it malfunctions. A gentle maiming is all I’m willing to risk.
Having seen the work of some mechanics, I feel safer doing stuff myself slowly and carefully and with proper cleaning and greasing in the right spots. These days I find less and less free time though :/
You are not a pussy for thinking that … I was there once too… We were both naive
Until a friend taught me 2 facts of life and brakes:
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car manufacturers make sure these vital parts are easy to put together to avoid mistakes…
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if you pay a shop to do this for you, 9.7 out of 10 times, it will be the greenest, unpaid apprentice who’d do this job on your car
Ps: I did my first job supervised by my friend… Word spread and I knew and by now I have done 4 brake jobs for myself and 16 for friends
That’s a fair point. I’ve started having income since then, though, so now I just send my car to scheduled maintenance.
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It is understandable to be apprehensive about working on a car, but you can save yourself tons of cash and be able to help others to do the same in exchange for beer and/or pizza.
Oh, I’ve done plenty of work on cars, I just don’t fuck with the brakes.
Well, I used to, when I had an 80s Toyota. Modern cars are too hard to work on, and honestly don’t need that much work either.
The brakes are the easiest part to work on though.
That’s obviously false. Tons of stuff is both lower stakes and easier than brakes. Changing simple stuff like lights, fuses, battery, wiper blades, wheels or oil, tons of other stuff. The only way brakes is the easiest part to work on is by arbitrarily excluding lots of other stuff from counting as “working on your car”.
And have changed so little over the years. If you could change disc brakes 30 years ago, you can do it today.
Brakes are quite simple, esp front brakes. So many videos online.
back in the early-mid '80s I worked as a tire changer for a chain of tire retailers. We had a mechanic who did all the front-end alignments and brake jobs etc, and he had an apprentice/helper who worked with him. When cars with drum brakes came in, they liked to each take a side and race to see who could get them done faster. I remember timing them once, and they both could remove and replace the shoes and the spring kits in less than 45 seconds.
Just do one side at a time so you can look at the other side if you forget where everything goes
