How to change rear brake shoes

How to change rear brake shoes.

Tools needed.

30mm Deep Socket, preferably a hub nut socket.
Flat blade Screwdriver.
10mm Spanner.
Tub of Multipurpose Grease.
Tub of Copper Grease.
Torque Wrench capable of tightening to 235nm.
Elastic Bands (optional).
Axle Stands.
Jack.

Parts needed.

Rear brake shoe kit available from Ford for around 30 pounds. Note that they come in two sizes generally later models are the 200mm ones, early ones are 180mm, mine is a 2000 reg car and was 200mm but you will want to double check first.

Chock the front wheels and put the car into 1st gear.

Fully release the handbrake and pull up the handbrake gaiter and locate the 10mm adjuster nut on the handbrake cable. Fully slacken this to the end of the thread.

Slacken the rear wheel bolts and jack up the rear of the car place axle stands under the rear beam trailing arms.

Remove road wheels, and with a small flat head screwdriver prise off the dust caps on the center of the hubs.

Using your 30mm socket, slacken the hub nut, be careful this may be quite tight. Remove nut off the stub axle.

Pull the drum away carefully to avoid damage to the bearing, if it is being stubborn either tap the periphery of the drum, with a bit of wiggling the drum should eventually come off.

Be careful as the bearing will likely fall out the drum if tilted upside down. using your finger pull the bearing out of the drum and set aside on a clean rag or surface.

Inspect the insides of the drum lining and clean up with methylated spirits. Remove any loose brake dust particles, careful not to inhale it.

Next the fun starts, you will be faced with a setup very similar to this



Take a similar picture to remind yourself how it all goes back together if you get stuck.

The best order I found to dismantling it all was as follows,

Start by removing the metal clips on the middle of each brake shoe, push the ends of the clips in and push them off the retaining pins. You can then recover the retaining pins by pushing them out the back of the assembley.

Scrape/clean as necessary to remove hardended brake dust.

Next starting at the bottom,



Prise away the bottom of one of the brake shoes from its holder



You will then be able to remove the bottom spring.



Move to the top and you should be able to manouvre the top pieces from the edges of the wheel cylinders.



Recover the top spring, and adjuster.

Finally twist the handbrake cable from the brake shoe arm.



You will then be able to remove everything off, and end up with something similar to this



Ignore the fact my wheel cylinder is hanging off, as I was changing these at the same time, you do not need to remove your wheel cylinders like this if you are just changing brake shoes.

Apply a thin layer of copper grease to all contact points on the new brake shoes, especially the friction point of the handbrake cable swing arm.

Do not get grease on the braking material of the brake shoes itself.

When you reassemble do it in the reverse order you took them off, i.e. locate the top of the brake shoes in the wheel cylinder, then the adjuster and top spring first, then the lower spring, then the retaining clips and pins, before refitting the adjusters, screw them in somewhat otherwise you wont get the drum back on.



Lever the lower point into position with a screwdriver.

If your wheel cylinders keep opening and getting in the way hold them shut with an elastic band or two until you have the brake shoes in position then cut them off.

Once you have everything back in position you should be left with this.



Clean up the stub axle and apply a layer of multipurpose grease.

Apply more grease inside the center hole of the drum assembley that you removed off the car. Also apply generous amounts of grease to the wheel bearing.

Slide the drum back on the assembley, then slide the bearing back over the stub axle locating it correctly and evenly in the center of the drum.

Apply more grease to the hub nut and thread, then do up the hub nut, to the correct torque of 235nm.

Once you have carried all this out on both sides, pump the footbrake 5 or 6 times so the self adjusters adjust correctly.

Pull the handbrake up 6 clicks, then do the handbrake cable adjuster nut up to the correct torque of 4nm.

Refit the handbrake gaiter, and check the handbrake engages properly and stops the drums turning.

Refit the road wheels and lower car back down and job done!

Dont know if this needs to be a guide or not?

I've moved this into the How To's as it's great information. Thanks Steve.

It's very well explained, top man :grin:

I wish I had read this before attempting to change my brake cylinder which has a busted off bleed nipple.
I made the error of assuming the cage nut was supposed to open up and come off in small parts. I have managed to remove 4 of the thin nuts from inside the cage but the last one is refusing to move. The cage broke up when I tried to close it and put it back together so now I have a problem. One nut refusing to move and I cannot get a socket to fit neatly on it, I bought a 28 mm deep socket which is just about the right size but I cannot shift the nut as the socket keeps slipping off. I tried to get in with a little dremel type grinder but it won't get into the space available. I got in with my drill and a file attachment but it is hardly doing anything - the nut is too hard to file away.

So any thoughts on what I should do now - apart from put it all back together and take it to Kwik Fit!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

No real help but for petes sake dont take it to Kwik fit :-(

The hub nut is only supposed to be reused limited times (perhaps only once) and it can come apart even if you arent trying to take it apart.

I would try and tap it round with a small screwdriver or chisel its so thin it cant have much resistance holding it on

If there's a "next time", try the official Ford method.
Remove the 4 bolts at the rear of the drum, that hold the hub/drum assembly to rear axle flange.
This way will remove the drum, complete with hub. Saves undoing the hub nut and disturbing the bearing. You won't then need a new hub nut and a torque wrench that goes up to 235Nm.

Thanks for the tips on getting my hub nut off. In the end a combination of belting it hard with a cold chisel and mallet started to cut through the nut then tapped it round with the chisel and mallet to unscrew it.

I considered taking the nuts off the back of the hub however with the handbrake cable running into the inside of the drum assembly I could not see how to get it off without breaking something. Yog's post is interesting but with the whole drum / hub assembly off I am not sure how you would then get into the brake shoes without still undoing the hub nut and getting the assembly apart?

OK - Got the brakes done and all reassembled. Have pumped the footbrake quite a few times but the hand brake will not yet hold the car. Pulled up hard it seems to do nothing. Before I put the drum back on I wound the adjuster right in. Is it just a case of havibf to keep pumping the brakes until the adjuster takes up the slack or is there more to it??
Also - after bleeding the brakes all round the pedal still feels soft, No sign of air coming through the fluid. After a couple of pumps the pedal hardens up. Any thoughts on that?
Thanks

Colin

Late replying I know, but no mention above of it, and I had same problem working on a customers car. So below serves as a stark warning about what to expect as a possibility of happening.

Underneath the car, behind the heat shield above the exhaust.

handbrake cable goes through the floorpan to the point above.
at that point there is a swivel plate which is designed to compensate for cable stretching so brakes still pull up evenly. This is where the cable from each rear drum connect to, then there is a small cable from that plate which goes through floor to handbrake.

unfortunately, ford designed it in such a way that there is no clip holding the short handbrake cable in place... it is held in place purely by tension.

what happens is, you slacken off the adjuster on the handbrake inside the car, reset the adjuster inside the drums to account for the new shoes... and it leaves the cable slack and the short cable connecting the swivel plate to the handbrake lever just "falls out" as there is no tension holding it in.

I spent ages trying to figure out why handbrake was going straight up, checked both drums 4 times and drew a blank.... then I got it on ramps and checked the cables underneath and that's what I found the short handbrake cable had fallen out the swivel plate disconnecting it from the rear brakes.

Then I struggled to get it to stay in while I adjusted the handbrake, kept falling out every time I went to adjust it... so ended up temporarily using a cable tie to hold it in the plate while I adjusted it... then cut it off after.

Its a bad design that its only held in place by tension, and one pig of a job to get to when you have to crawl under the car on ramps and get behind the heat shield without removing the exhaust.

Thanks for that tip, I'm just looking at doing the full monty on my pumas brakes. Euro car parts have got a good discount on brake parts at the moment.

You say that you held the short cable in with a cable tie would you recommend doing that before loosening any bits off? Im a rank amateur, the last time I did brakes was on a golf 20+ years ago. I have all the tools so fancy having a go myself.

cheers

Thanks for the heads up, Click. I think I have been lucky last few times but will definately remind this one. Just in case!

frankpuma said:

Thanks for that tip, I'm just looking at doing the full monty on my pumas brakes. Euro car parts have got a good discount on brake parts at the moment.

You say that you held the short cable in with a cable tie would you recommend doing that before loosening any bits off? Im a rank amateur, the last time I did brakes was on a golf 20+ years ago. I have all the tools so fancy having a go myself.

cheers

Click to expand...

Yep it's a good idea to use a cable tie to hold it in advance, some people must be lucky others not or if there is a clip it falls off and gets lost... No idea, all I know is it created a bit of a headache for me lol I did the shoes both sides, pulled handbrake up and it just went straight up to the end of its travel. First I tried readjusting it... Same still, then I pulled both sides apart multiple times trying to figure out the problem, tried to operate the adjusters inside the drums to adjust them a bit... Nothing, all the same.

In the end got underneath, and that's when I saw it had popped out,

Basically there is a small cutout on the top and bottom parts of the swivel/compensator plate, short cable goes through the middle in between the 2 plates and hooks into the cut outs.

Of course, if there's no tension, the cable moves forward slightly away from the cutout and then it only needs to twist slightly and then next time you pull handbrake up it pulls the cable through the middle of the plate dislocating it completely.

So just a heads up, if anybody's goes like that (as indeed the last poster before me did) that's why.

I never knew that could happen and haven't had it happen before also, but it's rather embarrassing when you go to do brake shoes both sides as a mobile mechanic, and 4 hours later you are still at it and pulling it all apart again repeatedly trying to figure out what's gone wrong, it doesn't inspire confidence with the customer... Especially when they keep checking on how you are getting on.

Cheers for that click, I am so happy that I have spotted your post before I get stuck in. Another stupid question, how can you tell if you need new shoes at the rear without pulling off the front of the hub? My brakes work fine however I bought her second hand and have done 12000+ miles since. The brake fluid reservoir is just above min. When I depress the brake pedal there is an almost unnoticeable 'friction' type sound coming from the rears. It doesn't sound too concerning at the mo but I'm just wondering if its the rear shoes on their last legs? :?

Cheers

The compensator looks similar to this,



Not the clearest of photos, but you can see the centre cable just hooks into the plate on the left hand side.

But when tension is released, it can twist slightly, then when you pull up handbrake it just pulls through that plate.

Other than if the symptoms of the rear brakes not working very well, no way to check thickness left on the linings without pulling the drum off.

Nice one click, thanks for posting that photo, very handy.

Well today being one of the first suitable ones this year for car maintenance I decided to do the brakes. Unfortunately for me the replacement discs were the wrong size for my car and the rear shoes were nothing like the ones fitted to my car! I put my reg in on the euro car parts site and just expected whatever they sent me to be correct, I was wrong, cheers euro car parts! Anyway, the discs seemed like a piece of cake to do and I had the drum apart and stripped in no time. Following all the advice on this thread about how to do the job was a massive help. Especially the advice from click about the securing of the master hand brake cable, that took me a little while to find! For any others who are interested it is situated right in the middle of the car above the heat shroud (I was looking around the back at first), just follow the cables back from the rear, I had to undo 4 fasteners to loosen off the shroud in order to access the cable, once that had been done I used a couple of cable ties to secure it just like click advised it worked a treat. Thanks for all the advice on here guys its been a real help even though I managed to change absolutely nothing today!

Thanks for the guide, followed it today and no probs!

Hi guys, I have managed to finally service the rear drums using this guide, cheers! I have a question for anyone who can answer? The brake adjusters are a mystery to me, I simply wound them in a bit in order to fit the drums back on no probs. Before taking the drums apart I noticed that the adjusters were fitted differently, they were both facing the same way but were seated on different sides. I fitted them back on each drum the way I had found them on the first drum which I serviced. On looking at the photos in this guide I see that mine are fitted opposite to the ones in the pics (same direction but the clips are on the opposite side). Anyone know if this will pose a problem? Hope not as I can't face stripping the whole lot down again lol.

All I can tell you is both my "Spring Clips" on the adjusters face outwards (as you view them fitted) and both face towards the front of the car. I did mine 20,000+ miles ago, and have not had any problems.