You Did a great job ,I needed to know the procedure before I do my neighbors car ,like everything else you learn with experience , the old shoes were better than good as you probably know already ,but look on the positive side , when they need replacing the next time you can knock this job out in an hour , don't let the smarty pants people discourage you , its your $30 anyway ,keep the faith and keep going your doing a great job at shooting the video and helping guys like me who have been doing auto mechanics for 40 years but not this car and now I know the procedure thanks to you
SAY BE SURE TO!: Once the drum is removed, water hose off the old shoes and backing plate and all before disassembling to SAFELY remove dust you DON'T want to breath in. Spin the hub with your hand and wiggle, checking for possible bearing are going bad noise or roughness or looseness. Peek under the hydraulic cylinder's 2 rubber caps for signs of possible brake fluid leaking from seals, indicating cylinder replacement & bleeding needed. Sand paper and clean and then lightly grease the backing plate's 6 small flat surfaces the shoes metal contacts and slides on!!!!! If you don't your brakes can stick, click noise, not self adjust as well and wear groves into the metal backing plate flat surfaces requiring smoothing or backing plate replacement. I had good tricky luck using 2 long screw drivers to manipulate the U metal spring bar ends into the brake pad holes. Using one driver to move the bar towards me and at the same time using another driver to move the bar towards the pad's hole. Clean and lightly oil the self adjuster threads and turn it back in some shorter to accommodate the new thicker shoes. Also make sure you have the horizontal self adjuster forks installed with long bent tab in the back on one end and seated straddling both the shoe and park brake arm and the cap's beveled short slip in-end in the back on the other end. Then expand one shoe some to carefully work the 2 peice self adjuster back into place and then the adjusting star wheel tiny ARM. Tricky but eventually works even with 1 person. Make sure the adjusting star wheel ARM is touching the teeth so that it will self adjust whenever braking while backing up and the spring is not touching/stopping the teeth from turning. With a screw driver, manually turn the teeth to expand the brakes some then center the shoes with your palms and install the drum while checking for drum free spinning yet shoes are almost touching. Remove drum and adjust more or less to get the self adjusters close to touching. Make sure the hub's face and drum's inner mating to hub surface and drum's outer face to inner tire mating surface is free of excessive rust and debris that could cause uneven mating/sandwiching. Once done, carefully back up the vehicle while pushing the brakes pedal on and off to actuate self adjusters to click and remove any remaining shoe slack. Remember when you first start to apply the brakes, it's the rear brakes that come on first to keep the vehicle tracking straight. If the first pedal depression is not responsive, the rear brakes adjustment engagement are suspect.
Very helpful! I might need to check my rear brakes check as I have to push the peddle down further to slow down the car. I only had the fronts done since I bought my '96 Lumina 4 years ago. I heard drum brakes cost more than disc. Lots steps involved , but looks easy to do.
Damusician Strikes Back you need to try bleeding the breaks. I had the same problems and I bleed my front breaks and it fixed it. You need to replace the back brakes whenever you can tho but bleeding them will temporary fix it. Also I know it was a year ago you left this comment I just hope it helps someone else. My drum brakes cost 17 dollars and my disc was 20.
You prolly dont care at all but does someone know of a tool to log back into an Instagram account?? I was stupid lost my account password. I would appreciate any tips you can offer me
@Phillip Rex i really appreciate your reply. I found the site through google and im trying it out atm. Looks like it's gonna take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
Great channel, you have really helped me out with my 99' lumina...one question though, should I change my drums if I only have 150,000 km or should I just change my shoes?
Same brakes as 1999 Buick Century. I've done this a couple of times. I just find it curious that GM did not use a primary and secondary shoes. The primary being the lead (facing front of the car) is typically smaller and the secondary larger. I can only raise one side of the car at a time. I get to the second side and that's when I think I mixed up the brakes. Nope both are the same size.
Your shoes looked like they had plenty of meat led on them. You should also adjust your shoes after the drum is on. There is an access port behind the assembly where a brake adjustment tool or short flat screwdriver will spin that wheel to bring the shoes out. I observed you call them pads - I am also so used to all wheel disk brakes too. You should clean the assembly after the old shoes are out so as to maximize the cleaning solution. Good way to tell if your shoes are adjusted good is that the emergency brake will have a short distance to travel to apply the rear brakes. I just did the first replacement of rear shoes on my 2002 Chevy venture. Looked just like yours. I myself am not accustomed to that large retainer spring. Back in the 1990's when I did my last shoe job, there was a spring pin that held the shoes in place.
the horseshoe is the biggest pita to get lined up, but it goes pretty deep on that nub there and you will know once you fuckin got that biatch also thank you very much for this video, my chevy malibu @ 300,000 miles had the horseshoe snap and i heard it rattling in there. the pads were still at like 80%, truly amazing and i use my parking brake every single stop use this car for delivery driver mode. the ultimate reliable car, the 3.1!
Most of the time the back bearing will go out & you replace shoes while your there..car will give a sound like the brakes are going out with a vibration like a tire out of balance on the freeway..just check the bearing cause the brakes look fine on that car
Stevo oliver; I'm experiencing that exact problem on my '98 Cutlass..it suddenly feels like my rear wheel is bent or out of balance at higher speeds. Going to inspect that hub assembly..thanks for the tip!
that was not really necessary to change the shoes on that car unless the rivit heads are almost flush with the surface of the brake lining material they were more likely out of adjustment and brake shops recommend putting a lubricant on the metal to metal contact points to prevent squeaking when braking. I you are not sure of what you are doing do a lot of research and ask questions before doing something your not sure how to do.
What I don't get is why are you "brake experts" always commenting on someone elses video. Why not just upload a video of you doing a brake job and sharing all your vast knowledge instead of just nitpicking at some dude for having the balls to upload himself doing a bake job. I mean you know it all dudes NEVER have any uploads whatsoever of anything on your channels why should anyone listen to your advice. Shut up and upload a video.