I read once that drum brake shoes get old and hardened over time and glaze over. For this reason, they may need replacement before they're worn down in order to ensure they're still effective.
True or not?
I ask because our '99 Tercel appears to still have its original shoes. Wife does not drive much, and there's about 1/8" of lining left on them, which is pretty much what there was when we bought the car 1½ years ago. I'm debating replacement or leaving it another year.
Where did you read such an article? Never heard of and can't see any scientific reason for it. When I was a teen ager in the 1950s I used to go behind garages and get old drum brake shoes that had been replaced because they had leaking wheel cylinders. I would throw them in a fire, burn off the brake fluid and reseat them to my scored drums and make sure they didn't grab. Never had a problem.
The classic shade tree mechanic. Congrats Hank, where have those good old days gone. I used to spend hours in the driveway tweaking on a old carter two barrel, never did get the dang thing to run right, .... ..
It you have only 1/8" of lining left, you should go ahead and replace them now.
I haven't heard the story about glazing before, and I always wear my brakes out long before then can get that old, but if you are down to 1/8", you have managed to wear them out. Go ahead and replace them and start the clock over again ...
I pitched my Carter a few years ago because it was not possible to get it to work right for my application - an old Jeep - and I replaced it with a fuel injection system It cost too much money, but it was worth every cent.
I had another carter in a dodge van back in the late 70s that hesitated. I fiddled around with that thing and had the carb off and on so many times I lost track. One day a coworker looked at it with a eyeloupe and found the holes for the accelerator pump were only partly drilled thru. I was only getting a little spurt of gas when stepping on the pedal. We used a jewelers broach and opened them up after that it worked as it should.
"Henry Kolesnik" wrote in news:OvP7e.2476$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com:
Well, yeah, my dad used to do the same thing with a torch. That worked with asbestos linings. Don't have those no more, though...
"Jeff Strickland" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ez2.net:
Eh, what the hell... My fingernails are almost clean again, so this is my excuse to get them dirty one more time.
I've got a 93 Corolla with 195,000 and the original rear shoes. They still haven't worn down to 1/8th. I asked the mechanic the very same question. He said it wasn't a problem.
Charles of Kankakee
If your rear shoes are lasting that long then they probably are not adjusted properly and the front brakes are doing more work. With the back of the car raised (fronts chocked properly of course) spin the tire with a moderate amount of force. The wheel should rotate once to one and a half times and stop. If it spins freely, the brakes should be adjusted. Both rear brakes should have an equal amount of drag.
Glaze on the shoes can be removed with medium grit sandpaper; glaze on the drums can be removed with fine sandpaper and brake cleaner.
When I first got it, they weren't adjusted right. I could not get the hand brake to hold the car, let alone stop it. I had to have the brakes worked on by 3 different people before the back brakes actually started working the way they should. Don't know how it got out of the factory that way. I had to show the 3d mechanic that I could move it with the handbrake fully on before he would quite believe me. He had never had to adjust a handbrake before. So I whipped out the Haynes that I keep in the car kit. That was about 50,000 miles ago.
Charles of Kankakee
225k on my '94 HiLux on the original shoes :) 110k on my '03 Tundra... I'll be checking them next oil change.
--- Rich
Im guessing the automatic trans folks are going to go through more brakes than the manual trans. people. With a manual, I seldom touch the brakes.
195,000 miles on the brake shoes and there is no problem!!! The problem is, the brakes are mal adjusted. They should have worn out at least once, and more like three times, in that distance.
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