altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 (edited) OK, this was a little side-job when I fitted the RA60 diff to the KE70. On this style of drum brakes there is a leading shoe and a trailing shoe. The leading edge is the one nearest the hydraulic cylinder in the direction of rotation, so that is the edge that gets pushed out onto the drum and bites. It is the one towards the front of the car. As the shoe pivots on the bottom pin, the bottom of the shoe does not get pushed out as much and does not work as hard. Obviously having a slave cylinder at the bottom would fix this, but be more expensive and complicated. The trailing edge is the top of the other shoe, it gets pushed out by the cylinder but the edge does not touch the drum first, the contact point is further down the shoe. This means the leading edge shoe does more of the braking, and wears more. I thought that seeing I had everything apart for the diff swap, I would swap leading to trailing shoe and even the wear up. You can do the same with single piston (swinging caliper) disc brakes, as one pad always wears first there too. This job is the same as fitting new shoes. Sadly the one picture of the components that I took is of the passenger's side, while the other pictures are of the driver's side. Remember this when the direction things face has changed. First up is getting the drum off. Car on stands, handbrake off- As the shoes work they wear the drum away, so a lip forms on the very edge of the drum and that has to be dragged over the shoes. There are two holes threaded for 8mm bolts that you use to get the drum outwards. Edited May 7, 2013 by altezzaclub 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 Here are the components that you need to take apart. Ths is passenger's side, so although the parts are the same the picture faces the other way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 (edited) You start with the two hold-back springs. On each shoe a pin comes in through the backing plate from behind and has two washers and a spring fitted via a slot in the washers. Just hold the head of the pin with a finger behind the backing plate & use pliers to push the washer down and turn it 90deg. They will release the two shoes, that are now just held together by the top and bottom springs. Edited May 7, 2013 by altezzaclub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 Then the lower spring. I used a flat-blade screwdriver to push one end back into the brake shoe hole and then pliers to free the spring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 Now remove the soft C-clip on the outside of the handbrake arm pivot. There is another C-clip behind the shoe, they hold the little axle in place that the handbrake arm pivots on. C-clips are soft alloy that get crushed into place, I re-use them once but I wouldn't re-use them again, so buy them when you get new shoes. Use a flat-blade driver to open the 'C' up and pliers to push it off the axle. With the C-clip off, the ratchet adjusting arm will be easy to move away from the adjusting wheel and you use a flat-blade to wind the adjusting rod back in to its mnimum. This makes fighting the top spring off much easier! You can see that when you use the handbrake it pushes the adjusting arm down on that adjusting wheel, and if it moves far enough it clicks the wheel over once. Ths is how the rear shoes are moved outwards as they wear. There is a slot in the backing plate to adjust new shoes up into position, but of course with the ratchet arm in place you can only tighten the shoes up, not adjust them back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 (edited) I used vice-grips to lever against the hub and a flat-blade to push the top spring out of its hole in the shoe. There is a lot of grunt required to move the spring, or maybe I'm just getting old! Edited May 7, 2013 by altezzaclub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 (edited) Now both shoes come off the backing plate. You can see the other C-clip holding the handbrake arm onto its shoe, and the ratchet spring holding the ratchet arm in place. Removing the C-clip will take the handbrake arm & cable off the shoe, allowing them to be fitted to new shoes. Edited May 7, 2013 by altezzaclub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 Here is the C-clip opened up and you can see the thin spacer washer behind. Just swap your new shoe straight into that position and close the C-clip up with pliers. I gave it a quick clean-up with brakeclean and a brush, but I wasn't that fussy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 (edited) Then you can assemble that shoe onto the backing plate. Put the ratchet arm on and the other C-clip, fit the ratchet spring and then put on the hold-back spring. That will hold the shoe in place. Clean and lube the thread in the middle of the adjusting rod and slip that into place.. Now comes the hard part. I put the bottom spring on next, so the other shoe gets held on, then the hold-back spring, then the top spring.. No matter which order you do them in, it is still a battle for the top spring. After you have them in place the last job is to adjust the shoes outwards to touch the drums. You can do most of this without the drum on, just wind the adjusting wheel out until the shoes touch the drum as you put it back on. You'll have to slap the shoes around a little with the drum to get them even and centered, remember the adjuster pushes the top of the shoes out more than the bottom. Put both drums and wheels back on and press the brake and haul up the handbrake a couple of times. They will both be loose, so climb underneath and use a flatblade through the slot in the backing plate to turn the adjusting wheel. Spin the tyre as you do it, you will find it grips in parts of the turn and is free in others. Hit the brakes again to center the shoes and then spin the wheel, and adjust it some more if the grippy part of the turn vanishes. In the end the pedal should be high, the handbrake feeling good and the wheel should have most of a turn without friction. They will wear in within a day or two, and someone who rallies an RA40 said they used to adjust them up fairly stiff before stage one and by the end of the stage they were free! So- add anything I've forgotten! Edited May 7, 2013 by altezzaclub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rian Posted May 7, 2013 Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 Legend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.Z.BUB Posted May 7, 2013 Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 (edited) So- add anything I've forgotten! YOu forgot the bit where everything is seized and you end up yelling at it and skin your knuckles. Great write up as usual. We need a place to put these kind of write ups. Maybe I could sticky a thread in the tech articles section with links to detailed how to's like this one. EDIT: Actually the tech section is quite bare, mind if I move this there? Edited May 7, 2013 by B.L.Z.BUB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parrot Posted May 7, 2013 Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 I haven't driven a car with drum brakes for about 25 years...... But strangely enough I can't wait to redo the rear drums on the KE15. There's something very soothing about assembling drums. My 2 cents, always a good idea to take some photos before you start disassembling because you will certainly get something back to front and good to be able to see what it looked like eforehand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted May 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 EDIT: Actually the tech section is quite bare, mind if I move this there? Go for it- I asked Ironkin if it should be anywhere in particular, I've managed to spread writeups all over the place and they are only linked through the build thread. Half of them, including the RA60 diff swap, are in KE70.com ..and the really really good news is that today I found out one slave cylinder is leaking, so I'll have them all apart again tomorrow! :bash: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
styler Posted May 7, 2013 Report Share Posted May 7, 2013 Good work as usual, also like to add brake spring pliers are a very useful tool to save knuckles... also new cylinders and a drum brake spoon to adjust the lash externally can be handy :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RustyKE70 Posted October 29, 2015 Report Share Posted October 29, 2015 I've fitted everything on but I can't seem to make the drums fit, its like the shoes are sticking out too much.. >? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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