I have this neighbor, Bob. Super nice guy, retired train guy. He's 80 and likes to travel. He bought this tiny Honda that gets like 50 MPG and drives it to Nebraska to visit his brother. Since he makes trips like this he needs to keep the car in tip top shape. Few months ago we put a front end in it. Yesterday he called and asked for help with the rear brakes. I show up with my old Snap On drum tool. It's a spring lever on one end and that rotator thing on the other. I also had the cup tool for squashing the round springs that locate the shoes to the backing plate. Here's the fun part... My tools were way too big for the tiny parts. The springs wouldn't fit around the tool to be guided into the hole.
We went to HF and got the plier for stretching the springs but it was also too big to work inside the shoes. I ended up removing everything he had already done and preassembling it off the car and then working it in and reconnecting the bottom spring. And those springs on the shoe locating pins were a horror show. They're not the old school round spring, they're a spring clip that we fought with and finally got back in. I have no idea how he got them in earlier by himself. Anyone know of anything that works on this stuff? I gotta do the other side today. Probably just do what I did yesterday.
We went to HF and got the plier for stretching the springs but it was also too big to work inside the shoes. I ended up removing everything he had already done and preassembling it off the car and then working it in and reconnecting the bottom spring. And those springs on the shoe locating pins were a horror show. They're not the old school round spring, they're a spring clip that we fought with and finally got back in. I have no idea how he got them in earlier by himself. Anyone know of anything that works on this stuff? I gotta do the other side today. Probably just do what I did yesterday.
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