Fairly noobful question regarding drum brakes

[Nice Guy Neil]

Hey folks,
I don't know too much about drum brakes, only the textbook kind of stuff - how they work, what the parts in there do.
Whenever I park on a hill, I put on the handbrake, and then as I take off the normal brake and put the weight onto the rear ones, it groans pretty loudly at me. Also, I have to apply it more clicks to get the car not to move.
Is this indicative of just needing to replace the drum shoes / perhaps drum Or is there something in particular I should look at?
Thanks for the help,
-Neil

[smufguy]

Hey Neil. Welcome to the board. WEll the best place to learn a lot about drum brakes is here >> http://auto.howstuffworks.com/drum-brake.htm

There are not much to them at all, they got the following parts in them.

1. Brake Drum
2. Brake Cylinder (sandwiched between the shoes) << Often called as Wheel cyl>>
3. Brake shoes
4. Self adjuster (whatever the technical term is, its the self click thing)
5. Emergency/Parking brake mechanism.



THey work just like the front brakes, but the placement, orientation and mechanism is just different. Once the brake pedal is pushed down, and the fluid is forced into the lines, they push the pistons in the rear wheel cylinder and they inturn push the shoes outwards towards the braking surface of the Brake Drum. Brake drum is a lot better than a regular sized Caliper design, because the Drum brakes utelize a larger braking surface. Awkward may it sound, the Freight trucks use nothing but drum brakes with ABS and their brakes are huge.

The reason in a passenger car the drum brakes are outdated cause of their weigh. Regardless, the drum brakes are heaver and changing the shoes, is a pain in the ass job and too many mechanical parts in there to go bad. Including the tensioner springs and self adjusters. More the moving parts, more the headache. Besides, the cars are very light compared to big trucks, and improved disc brake design including the craziest 6piston fixed calipers enable a car to just stop on a dime.

For your car. If you hear a squeaking sound or a dragging sound, most likely your self adjuster is not working. Once you take the foot off the brake, the vibration bwt the pads and the drum will cause the brake shoes to retract back to a hairline gap, but if the internals are frozen, then its not gonna be possible. You can go to autozone, pickup shoes (for two sides) for about $10 and two drums for about $10 (each) and a service kit ($16) that includes new springs and stuff.

Its a little hard at first to change the drum brakes if you have not changed them, but make sure you change the pads and the drums. I did that 3000 miles back and the car stops amazingly quick and in 4 clicks on the EBrake, im parked.

HOpe this helps

[Nice Guy Neil]

Cool, thanks, I'll give that a shot. The car already stops pretty quickly since I replaced the front brake pads - it'll be nice to see how this helps the braking. Probably also help get the rear end around at the autocross.
Thanks again for the info,
-Neil

[AccordEpicenter]

Use honda shoes, they are $12 per shoe and last longer with less headaches.

[Oldblueaccord]

Hey folks,
I don't know too much about drum brakes, only the textbook kind of stuff - how they work, what the parts in there do.
Whenever I park on a hill, I put on the handbrake, and then as I take off the normal brake and put the weight onto the rear ones, it groans pretty loudly at me. Also, I have to apply it more clicks to get the car not to move.
Is this indicative of just needing to replace the drum shoes / perhaps drum Or is there something in particular I should look at?
Thanks for the help,
-Neil

Just a tip push the brake pedal in pretty hard and then set the e-brake. This forces both shoes tight against the drum instead of just one. Also the rear brakes might just need to be adjusted closer to the drum. The self-adjuster doesnt work to well so I do mine about every 3 months or so.

wp

[phrenology]

Hey folks,
I don't know too much about drum brakes, only the textbook kind of stuff - how they work, what the parts in there do.
Whenever I park on a hill, I put on the handbrake, and then as I take off the normal brake and put the weight onto the rear ones, it groans pretty loudly at me. Also, I have to apply it more clicks to get the car not to move.
Is this indicative of just needing to replace the drum shoes / perhaps drum Or is there something in particular I should look at?
Thanks for the help,
-Neil

Sounds like you need a new e-brake cable.