Just worked on drum brakes for the first time...

[AutoMechanic]

All but two of my vehicles have drums and one has them all the way around I am a professional mechanic and still young too but that is one of the first things I mastered was drum brakes now I do them with no issues

 

[HonorAndHonesty]

I had a '70 Olds Cutlass with a decidedly under-braked arrangement: 9" frt drums. Yeah... not enough fade resistance, not enough braking power for the goldblock 350 4V engine's speed capability... but I'll say one thing: never did it suffer so-called rotor runout (which mostly is not rotor runout... but rather differential brake pad deposits on the rotor). One smooth, smooth, smooth brake system.

Yep! Drums do have their advantages! Im glad you brought this up, nowhere near as much issues with "lot rot" from sitting either.

 

[HonorAndHonesty]

I've never worked on drum brakes. Tried once on my old Sable but couldn't even them apart to get started.

I hated those when I was a tech, You would almost always had a huge ridge in the drum the shoes would get stuck on. You would have have to push back the self adjuster arm and really crank back the adjuster to get get the drums off. Not completely atypical with drums however the Taurus/Sable was by far the most extreme example.

 

[Lubener]

Good for you. On the Civic I've only changed the shoes once in 23 years. It's good to have those special tools to do drum brakes.

If a screwdriver and channel locks are "special tools" then that's what I have used for 30+ years without any difficulty.

 

[Peted]

My 09 GM 1500 has rear drum brakes. Not looking forward to servicing them. Otherwise no issues, I'm rated to tow 9,500lbs so they must work OK

 

[Gene K]

If I remember correctly I did brakes on all four corners of my '53 210 Two Door Sedan. It's been 35 years so it might have just been fronts. I bought a lot of old cars and did a little TLC and would then move on to something else in those days.

 

[JeffKeryk]

If I remember correctly I did brakes on all four corners of my '53 210 Two Door Sedan. It's been 35 years so it might have just been fronts. I bought a lot of old cars and did a little TLC and would then move on to something else in those days.

My '50 Chev Business Coupe was pretty easy.

 

[Silverado12]

A few things to remember when doing drum brakes are always wear eye protection when messing with those springs. Do one side at a time and use the other side for reference. Also don't mix up parts as the adjustors are different for R and L sides. Short shoe always goes towards the front of the car. I use antiseize at the 3 shoe contact points on the dust plate.