jonathanrn

Hi all,
I, using your great pictures from the DIY section, replaced my brakes and rotors yesterday. Everything went great except when I was trying to remove the rear rotors, it took quite a bit of troubleshooting before discovering that there is a gear located behind the rotor to loosen and tighten the emergency brakes. When I took off the rotors, it looked like the drum brake pads were worn pretty severely, like they had been too tight and were in constant contact with the rotor. I have the Chilton guide coming via Amazon in a few days, but I wanted to ask how I am supposed to know how tight/loose the emergency brake is supposed to be according to that gear that adjusts the wheels independantly and also how tight/loose should I make the cable under the driver's seat.

Thank you in advance!
-Jonathan

carguy07

Sent you a PM.

salimshah

The Auxiliary brake can be used as emergency brake. Try it one of these days to test out.

The cog can be turned through the hole to raise or lower the drum shoes. The worst is when the shoes cut a groove and then the lip is formed and makes it pretty darn difficult to remove the drum.

On it own the cog is moved up if there is lot of travel. So the system self adjusts. I generally raise the cog enough for the drum to slide on. Then use a rubber mallet to strike the drum a bit to help the shoes center them selves. The I apply the aux brakes to see how much travel there is. If it is too much then I raise it by couple of notches and then spin the drum and beat it gently with the mallet. The key is that there should be no drag with the aux brake released.

Check the free roll to see if the brakes are dragging.

Salim