Anyway, this is the second drum brake job I've done, the first was over 20 years ago. After several attempts of getting the first drum off, I referred to the Muir book on using a hammer to tap the sides of the drum to loosen. It worked great, however after removing I saw that the drum was severely worn. The cylinders seals were also torn and leaking. There were several broken springs as well. It looked like they hadn't been serviced in years.
I began to remove the shoes, to discover I need to loosen the Emergency Brake. Not just release the brake but actually loosen the cable at the base of the brake handle. Once loose I was able to get the shoes off.
I was very careful to remove the brake line. It doesn't look like the thing to break! Once removed, I had to spray some brake cleaner around the back plate and cylinder screw. After chipping off old brake fluid and years of brake dust I was able to remove the cylinder. The passenger rear didn't have any anti rattle pins, I did find one of the springs loose in the drum.
I saved and cleaned the e-brake arm, the brake adjusters, the cross bar in solvent. I then rinsed and scrubbed with a wire brush. The soaked in solvent for about 30 minutes. I then rinsed.
The installation on the first one went pretty good until I got to the anti rattle pins! They were just a little short making it almost impossible to compress the spring to snap in. After searching endlessly through my hoard of random junk, I checked the parts box I got with Vera. It had some longer pins! Bam, they were in. The second one went pretty good, I knew what I was doing haha. Fortunately I had extras of the anti rattle pins for the other side or I would have been stuck.
I then tighten brake at the base of the lever in the cab.
I then bled topped of the Brake fluid and bled both brakes.
Initial test drive went good. The e-brake works good too.
It was a fun adventure!
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