brake help 2

[Addy]

ello all need some help with rear brakes, i just got my shinny new brake drums and new shoes.

so i removed the old shoes and cleaned the cylinders, put new seals on, next i put the brake shoes in but forgot where one of the springs went, so in my hast to get the drums on i left it. (i intend to put it in)

then i did the same with the drivers side but when it came to putting the drum on it wudnt go over the shoes!

is there any adjusting i can do to brings the shoes in.

also the spring that i couldnt figure is the one with coils at either end and a bigger squarish hook at one side.

i dont have the haynes for the magnum but i will obviously hav to buy one

[droopsnoot]

The bigger square hook goes through the hole in the shoe that has the handbrake lever on it - it has to be a different shape because it hooks through two thicknesses of metal.

As for bringing the shoes in, are you sure it's not just that they don't line up? Sometimes one of the shoes will be "above" the other, and because they don't line up into a circle the drum won't go over. And if one of the big springs is missing that will make it less easy to see.

Failing that you might be able to squeeze the cylinder in a little with some pipe grips - you might have to take the fluid reservoir lid off first.

[Addy]

yeah i did eventually put the spring through that hole as it seemd the only logical place it would go.

as for the alignment of the shoes i'l have to give it another go when i've got some spare time. if not the grips will hav to come out. Ok thanks for the advice i'l sort it this week if i can!

[droopsnoot]

Oh and the other thing is to make sure the adjuster is backed off as much as possible, or that might leave the shoes too wide apart for the drum to go on. If you have self-adjusting brakes, you'll see a "ratchet" thing on the bracket between the shoes, lift that apart against the spring and you can press the shoes closer together, then when you have the drum on you can use brakes a few times to make it self-adjust. Also there's a small gap in the backplate that allows you to separate the ratchet without removing the drum.

If they're not self-adjusting, I don't know how you do it (other than by turning the adjuster, I don't know if anything else is involved), I've never done one. But on a Magnum, they should be SA.