Sunday, January 16, 2011

herald front drums

Well it was cold and miserable Sunday afternoon so I decided that it was time to start some work on the Courier, now drum brakes are a lot less user friendly than discs, so I have taken some photos and here is a description of the job so far.

I jacked up the car and used an axle stand to back up the jack, removed the road wheel, and back the brake adjusters off, the adjusters can seize or break so I keep some spare ones in stock, today though no problems. I then removed the cover of the brake master cylinder put some cling film over the top and replaced the cover, this can slow down or stop the master cylinder draining when the brake pipes are disconnected.
Then I removed the two small screws that secure the brake drum, these can be a real pain, if they are corroded in or the slots are too worn for a screwdriver to move them, I have had to drill these out in the past, but today no problems.
When the drum is removed the brakes are exposed, I undid the wheel bearing split pin and nut then the hub assembly slides off the stub axle, this makes things easier to dis and reassemble. The track rod end always gets in the way when doing herald drum brakes so I removed it, you can use a ball joint splitter when the nut and washer are removed, I did it the way I know which is just loosen the nut and strike the track control arm right by where the track rod sits, the shock will nearly always lead to the track rod end being released, best to leave the nut on when using the hammer, then if you miss the thread isn't damaged.
I undid the brake shoes retaining clips and springs then removed the shoes and springs.

I then undid the wheel cylinders, they are held by two 7/16 bolts, then the flexible and metal brake pipes, couple of hints here the flexible pipe needs an initial release with a spanner and then with the metal pipe removed you can pull the wheel cylinder through and unscrew the cylinder from the pipe. The metal pipe is easy one side to undo but the end by the flexible pipe can be a problem, I overcame this by threading a 7/16 ring spanner down the pipe which made things a lot easier to undo.

The next job was to clean all the dirt and grease from the back plate, clean all the other bits and bobs with brake cleaning spray and degreaser then reversed the process rebuilding with new cylinders and shoes, bleeding the brakes can be difficult with the drum brake set up, if you have problems bleed the flexi pipe and then the metal brake pipe then the bleed nipple.









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