Changing rear Brake Shoes & Wheel Cylinders

[Oldman]

Courtesy Rev (Ian):
Decided to change the rear breaks pads and this is how I went about it.

You will need two sets of shoes, two wheel cylinders, and a break kit which includes new springs and clips. I also decided to replace the drums as well. Everything is available from The Buss Stop.

Rear brake shoes set of 4 complete $80.00
Rear wheel cylinders, German $28.00 each
Rear shoe fitting kit for two wheels $30.00
Rear Drum $125.00 each

After removing the rear wheels and the two small nuts holding the drum in place you should be able to remove the drum and reveal the rear shoes and wheel cylinder. My 75 bus looks like this.



Firstly I disconnected the hand break cable from the hand-break so that the cable was slack enough to remove from the hand-break lever attached to the shoes in the drum. There are two cables (one for each rear wheel) that are attached to a bracket by two square nuts coming from the hand-break towards the front of the bus, just in front of the steering arm. Mine looked like this..



Next I removed the cable from the hand-break leaver inside the drum...



Then I loosened off the rear shoe's via the adjusting stars at the bottom of the drum so that the pads where as lose as possible. I sprayed some WD40 on the stars so they would turn easier. You want to wind the stars so that the pads move to the center.

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Next I removed the bottom spring that holds the two shoe's together with a pair of pliers.  




With the break cable and bottom spring removed I was able to remove the shoes by pulling them from the adjusting adjusting screws at the bottom and and then out of the wheel cylinder at the top. The pad's came out with the spring at the top and the bar between the shoes still attached.

[Oldman]

With the shoe's off you will need to remove the brake-lever from the shoe (so you can attach it to the new one) by removing the c-clip that holds the lever onto the pad. I used a screw-driver to open the clip and then a small hammer to remove it.



There is a new c-clip in the brake kit to hold the break-lever onto the new shoe. I closed it with a pair of vice-grip pliers 




Replacing the wheel cylinder involves removing the brake line, which is the metal tube that goes into the back of the wheel cylinder with a nut on the end, and undoing the nut that holds the wheel cylinder onto the break drum (it's the larger nut under the brake line). Undo the brake-line first other wise the the wheel cylinder turns when you try to undo the brake-line.



With the brake-line and nut removed the wheel cylinder should pull out.



Replace the wheel cylinder, and attach the brake-line and nut. Be careful not to cross-thread the brake-line.
 

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To fit the new break shoes (with the break lever attached) I attached the new spring with coils to the back so that the ends of the spring came through the front. Replaced the metal bar that sat between the top of the shoes, the bigger slot in the bar fits over the break-lever (don't forget the metal clip that goes over the bar and clips onto the spring). 

I then stretched the shoes over the hub and put the bottom ends into the adjusting stars and then to the top of the shoes into the wheel cylinder – you may need to adjust the slots on the wheel cylinder so they line up with the shoes.
One of the last things to do is replace the bottom spring, which I found a little tricky, but eventually got it. Then I put the break cable back on the break lever – did the same on the other side and then fixed the brake-cable's back onto the hand-break at the front of the bus.

Rear shoes replaced. 


Run out of the time to do the front pads and bleed the breaks – but will post when I do.

Rev.