Drums, Shoes & Hardware

On a car with rear drums, that is the classic sign. Drum brakes need the shoes held close to the drum by an adjuster, and when the adjuster seizes with corrosion the gap grows as the shoes wear, so more pedal movement is used up taking up slack before anything happens. Many designs adjust automatically when the parking brake is applied or when reversing and braking. Free and lubricate the adjuster threads, or replace the hardware, before assuming the problem lies elsewhere in the hydraulics.

You need the drum off, since nothing is visible from outside. Measure the friction material against the manufacturer's minimum, and inspect for contamination, which is just as disqualifying as wear. Fluid on a shoe from a weeping wheel cylinder ruins the lining permanently and cannot be cleaned off. Check the drum's internal diameter against its maximum at the same time, because a drum worn oversize will not give full contact even with new shoes fitted.

Because release depends entirely on springs. A disc brake retracts through its piston seal and the shoes on a drum do not: they are pulled back by return springs and held flat by hold down springs, and once those weaken, a shoe stays lightly in contact, heats the drum, glazes the lining and starts a spiral that ends with a warm wheel and a car that pulls. Fitting new shoes onto tired springs wastes the shoes. Buy the hardware with the friction parts.

Usually yes, and only after measuring. Compare the internal diameter with the maximum figure cast or stamped on the drum, and look for scoring, heat cracking, an internal step at the edge of the shoe contact band, or a bluish tinge indicating overheating. A drum within limits with a smooth face can be lightly deglazed and reused. One that has been machined before or shows any cracking is finished. Replace drums in axle pairs when they do need replacing.

Because the duty cycle changed. Regenerative braking handles most deceleration, so the rear friction brakes barely work, and a disc that sits unused corrodes and pits until it needs replacing with the pads still nearly new. A drum is enclosed, keeps its working surfaces out of the weather, and tolerates long periods of disuse far better. It also provides a simple and reliable parking brake and generates less airborne dust, which is becoming a regulatory concern in its own right.

Start at the drum rather than the lever. Each side has a parking brake lever inside the drum acting through a rod or strut to spread the shoes, and a seized lever pivot, a corroded rod or a stretched cable on one side gives exactly this symptom. Check that the cable moves freely and that the equaliser is balanced, then inspect the lever and rod inside the drum. Left and right brake rod assemblies are listed here separately, which makes a one sided fault straightforward to fix.

This is one of the cheaper brake categories. Springs, support pins, rods and dust shields sit right at the bottom of the range, and even complete backing plate assemblies remain modest. Complete drum brake assemblies cost the most and are still less than a comparable disc and caliper set. The live minimum and maximum are shown in the band at the top of this page. Because hardware should be replaced with the friction parts, price the set rather than a single item.

It is fiddlier rather than harder, and the difficulty is entirely in the springs. There are more pieces, they are under tension, and their routing is not obvious once everything is on the bench. The reliable approach is to photograph the assembly from several angles before touching it, dismantle one side while the other stays intact as a reference, and use proper spring pliers rather than improvising. Budget longer than you would for discs on a first attempt.

It is the steel plate bolted to the axle that carries the wheel cylinder, the adjuster, the springs, the hold down pins and the shoe contact pads, and it seals the back of the drum against road spray. Replace it when corrosion has thinned it around the mounting points, when the shoe contact pads have worn grooves that let the shoes chatter, or when it has been distorted. Backing plate assemblies are listed here for left and right, sometimes supplied with hardware already fitted.

A wheel cylinder and a full set of friction and hardware for that side, at minimum. Brake fluid soaks into the shoe lining and cannot be washed out, so contaminated shoes are scrapped regardless of thickness. Clean the drum thoroughly with brake cleaner, replace the cylinder, fit new shoes, springs and hold down hardware, and bleed the circuit. Do the opposite side at the same time if it has similar mileage, since wheel cylinders usually fail within a short period of one another.

Only the metal contact points, and sparingly. A thin film of high temperature brake grease belongs on the six shoe contact pads on the backing plate, on the adjuster threads, and on the parking brake lever pivot. Nothing goes near the friction surface of the shoe or the inside of the drum, and ordinary greases will not survive the temperature. Excess grease attracts brake dust into a paste that binds the mechanism, so use a small amount precisely placed rather than a generous coating.

Yes. Drum braking parts sit on a smaller share of the vehicles in the catalogue, so pricing is loaded less often here than on disc components. Send the reference and a figure comes back against it. Ask for the hardware kit in the same message even if the springs look serviceable. Return springs lose tension with heat cycling and a shoe set fitted on tired springs drags, overheats and glazes within a few thousand miles. If the drum itself is scored, have its internal diameter measured before ordering, because a drum near its wear limit cannot be skimmed back.