question about servicing and brake shoes (2000 Camaro)

Well....

I still call rear pads 'shoes' just from habit when thinking rear. Usually when typing it, I catch myself or when talking will usually catch and correct myself, but it happens for sure. Dates us..... ;-)

You do have rear 'shoes' maybe still. Most rear disks I have seen still have a small drum brake for the e-brake, but I do not know yours....

For an inexpensive book that will go over most repair issues in your vehicle, a Haynes Manual is a pretty decent one. It is in the $20.00 range and is geared at the average person's mechanical level, not a 'pro's' level. Most auto parts stores sell them. I find them great and buy one for every vehicle I own.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

Bob wrote:

"Bob" wrote

I would say that he just isn't being careful with his terminology, but he probably means the rear disc brake pads. On your vehicle, you do have rear brake "shoes" inside the "hat" of the rear rotors. Those are your park brake shoes. Your mechanic probably won't know what shape they are in until he pulls the rear rotors off. Which is not usually done on a basic brake inspection, as it's labour intensive.

I would recommend that you spend time browsing this newsgroup, the alt.autos.gm group and it appears that there are a couple of camaro groups too. You can get a lot of good info by just reading the threads. (you can also get real confused too, but you just have to take some time and learn who knows what they are talking about)

Ian

Ian, these internal drum parking brakes go way back with GM, but GM also went through a period with these miserable mechanically adjusting rear disc brakes.

Have GM gone away from the latter style?.

"HLS" wrote

Yeah, the trucks use this style now, and most of the cars and vans with rear disc brakes. In some ways, it's too bad. The later rear calipers that had the adjusting mechanism in them were not that bad. We had very few problems with them.

Ian

Bob, you should join us in alt.autos.camaro.firebird. There are a lot of guys over there with better answers to your specific questions. 33k miles for the rear shoes or pads is not very good mileage. The front pads should wear about twice as fast as the fronts. If your pads are worn down to 3-4% then the mechanic should be freaking out and strongly recommending you to change them or else there will be impending damage and higher repair costs. If you think you're being taken for a ride, I suggest that you ask for the replaced parts back.

The rear brakes, if they're disc brakes should only be pads, GM didn't put the disc brake with drum e-brakes on the f-body.

I'm not completely sold on "all convertibles have 4 wheel disc" but I have nothing to back me up on that. It's completely possible.

There are quite a few F-body websites, fbody.org and f-body.com are a couple places to start.

Good luck

-Bruce

"Bruce Chang" wrote

Well, at this particular time, you aren't one of them!

Is that right? Is this what the experts over on the alt.autos.camaro.firebird newsgroup say?

For your edification and education, here's the "system description" for a

2000 Camaro park brake system, right out of the online SI2000 GM manual. ************************************************** System Description Park Brake System The park brake system for this vehicle has been changed and now contains the "drum in hat" parking brake system instead of the previous system which relied on the disc brake caliper for parking brake system operation. The park brake system allows a mechanical application of the rear parking brake shoes to the inner rotor surface by pulling the park brake lever. When the park brake system is applied, the effort with which the brake lever is moved is transmitted by the cables to the brake levers which force the rear brake shoes outward against the inner rotor surface. As the brake shoe lining wears the park brake system must be manually adjusted to prevent excessive hand lever travel. *************************************************

Ian

I guess I stand corrected.. Thanks for being so nice about it..

"Bruce Chang" wrote

Yep, little nasty I guess. But I expect better from someone like you who obviously has a lot of good knowledge. I've never been able to figure out why people make bold statements like:

without being absolutely sure that it's correct! People are looking for "correct" information here. At least I think that's what they are here for. Maybe they like urban myth and general bullshit...who knows? Cars aren't going to get fixed properly with those two items though.

Ian

I had looked into swapping a late model rearend into my 3rd gen f-body and that never came up in all the rearends that I looked at and I guess I wasn't thorough enough in my research. I know there is a lot of mis-information out on usenet and I apologize for contributing to it. That's why there's more than just one person around, to make sure that it doesn't become a new myth. Thanks for keeping me in check.

-Bruce

Strange....I saw lots of problems with these several years ago.

People here don't tend to use their parking brakes, and I figured that this was a major cause that the adjusters froze. We have lots of rain too, which could be a factor, but I would have thought that northern climates where slush and salt are not uncommon would have been worse.

"HLS" wrote

You might be thinking of the early versions of the W-cars, and the old versions that were on the Fieros, and F-bodies...also some of the Rivs and Toro's...that's years ago now. All of these ones were simply terrible. I'm thinking of the later versions on the W-bodies...somewhere around 95 I think. And the Cadillac's used a similar system on their STS's and Deville's. They work quite well, no freezing of the adjuster portion of the caliper and the slide's don't seize up the way the 1st design W-body calipers used to.

The park brake shoes in the "hat" section of the rotors work ok on most of the vehicles that they come on. But on the full size trucks....they've been a bit of a disaster. I also dislike them from the standpoint that you cannot pick out a front or rear rotor pulsation problem anymore. In the "old days" ( heh heh), you could engage the park brake while at speed and see if the pulsation was from the rear rotors. Now, with the shoes inside the "hat" section of the rear rotor, you cannot distinguish between a front rotor pulsation, or a rear rotor pulsation as easily as before. Of course, most rotor pulsations will be from the front rotors, but occasionally, you can have problems with the rear rotors (or drums).

Ian

what everyone else said. :)

You should be able to tell if you have rear disks or not - look through your front wheels - you'll see a disk and a "thingy" (called a caliper) over the disk. If you have the same thing in the back it's rear disks. If all you can see is rust on the inside of the rear wheel then it's probably a drum brake.

some pictures - about 1/2 way down you can see the difference between a drum and disk brake setup. If you have rear disks, he probably just said shoes out of habit. Most cars in the "old" days were front disks, rear drums - even today a lot of cars are that way...

Ray