Drum brake replacement

[audiodude332001]

Hey everybody. My rear brakes have been acting kinda spongy lately, and yesterday I took my truck out on a trail with my friend and his 4runner. I got the truck stuck in a mud puddle that was over the tires deep, and the truck sat there for about 2 hours before his dad came with an F250 to pull me out. Now, My rear brakes stopped working after that so I pulled the drums off to find that the shoes are nearly nonexistant and are completely worn off, and on the drivers side there is a little cable that has a hook on one end, and a ring on the other and it is broken in half. I have never done drum breaks before, so can someone give me some basic instructions on how I replace the shoes?

Thanks,
Andy

 

[cjbarron5]

buy a chiltons or a haynes manual then you can see pics also

 

[MrShorty]

Haynes/Chiltons is adequate for this. If a print manual is too old fashioned, autozone has put an electronic version of Chiltons in the vehicle repair guide section at www.autozone.com One tip, do one side at a time, then you have the other side to refer to, noting that they are mirror images of each other.

 

[savant]

I just dealt with that problem on my 91 a few weeks ago (the non-working rear brakes). That cable that you found in two pieces is part of the adjustor mechanism. It's what keeps the shoes near to the drum, as the shoes wear.

As the previous two suggested, a Haynes or Chiltons will do the trick in fixing those brakes. If you're brave, you might try just buying two adjustor kits (~12 bucks each) and two spring kits (about the same). On mine, the emergency brake cables had both siezed as well (which is what had ruined my rear brakes in the first place.

You can test to see if your emergency brake cables are healthy or not by having someone engage and then release the emergency brakes several times while you watch the cable. Unless the end of the cable moves significantly, you'll need to replace both emergency brake cables as well (about $20 apiece).

I suppose it's also relevant to mention that when my emergency brake cables siezed, they wore grooves into my drums, ruining them. Unless your drums have smooth, relatively thick braking surfaces, you may want to consider replacing them as well (about $50 apiece).

 

[Ford_Racing_Guy]

i have a feeling that i'm gonna have to redo the rear brakes on mine also "cringes at the thought"