I4 Rear Drum Maintenance

[Jai_Jai_Binks]

I know these are 'self-adjusting' drums/brakes. Do you guys do additional service to your drum brakes.

I ask cus' i took my car in for timing belt service and the tech asked when were the brakes last done (for the fronts i have replace w/ brembo blanks and toyota pads), but the rear's...nothing.
On my last car (celica - also a disc/drum combo) i never had any work done to them at all (and i had owned it for 170K miles).
From my lil' research on google, various sites want me to measure the size of wear and replace shoes.

MY QUESTION: like we do resurfacing/maching rotors, etc for the front side...is there a service we need to do for the rear drum brakes. Its not like i'm having a problem, its just..I am uncertain if i've been negleting something (car's at 95K miles currently). Or do we service them, when we have a problem??

What the symptoms for worn brakes shoes?? (besides mesuring them..i mean the drivability, braking, etc). Suggestions/comments welcome.

[Jon11582]

Very good question.

I've never had my drums serviced at all ever. I don't even know how to change shoes if I needed to.

I know the rear does about 10% of the braking, maybe less so since we have disc on the front and drums on the rear, so bad brakes in the back wont cause any major problems.

Worn brake shoes should result in the metal of the shoe hitting the metal of the drum, so I assume they will squeak/squeal just the same as worn front brakes.

The only time that this would cause a major problem is if your Ebrake fails to work due to worn shoes on an incline. Maybe thats a good way to test - Pull the E-brake on an incline, and let off the foot brake but stay IN the car incase you need to hit your brakes to stop it from rolling down a hill. If you roll back when E-braked on an incline, you need new shoes! (and a new parking spot at that moment.)

Come to think of it, I like the drums back there. Absolutely no brake dust whatsoever.

[Solarafreek]

Im pretty sure you can TURN a drum like you would TURN a rotor but on the inside.

[Hybridlude97]

You can turn drums, while it is uncommon, its possible. Most of the time you just take the actual drum off and clean all the brake dust off and lube the moving parts on the inside. Thats about all you should need for your rears

[Jai_Jai_Binks]

Im pretty sure you can TURN a drum like you would TURN a rotor but on the inside.

FYI: TURN'ing also referred to as machining also known as resurfacing and by many other names. So when do you 'TURN' drums Mr. rollyeyes? i don't have shiver on my braking, i do not have any braking problems, i do not have any squeels. my brakes are flawless. Its just a questions that a tech asked and i have no way to answer it myself. Hence i ask you all. I never did any drum-maintenace on my celica (like i mentioned before) and at 170K I sold the car..so i don't know how long do they last. I agree with Jon that I appreciate the no brake dust, but somehow just 'turning' the drums doesn't help me answer the question..so when do you turn (if its what you do..and i've no idea how to replace shoes).
its not like i'm asking how...i'm asking when do you know its time.

[Solarafreek]

^^^ Honestly i have NEVER touched my drums, on any car for that matter. I have heard of the machining. I dont trust myself with drums. Discs are easy. Sorry I couldnt answer your question.

[Hybridlude97]

There is a viewing hole in the back of the brake assembly so you can look at the shoes. Just replace them when the shoes are low.

[Jai_Jai_Binks]

Thanks guys. So i guess the solution is to replace "when" needed..there isn't a consensus as to what maintenance to do in the interim. And the "when" part isn't very clear too...I guess when it squeeks/grinds, i suppose....

The only time that this would cause a major problem is if your Ebrake fails to work due to worn shoes on an incline. Maybe thats a good way to test - Pull the E-brake on an incline, and let off the foot brake but stay IN the car incase you need to hit your brakes to stop it from rolling down a hill. If you roll back when E-braked on an incline, you need new shoes! (and a new parking spot at that moment.

Jon, although that is a good idea - I just hope that by the time one realizes their parked car has moved spots, its not too late in cost of repairs (or someone possibly getting hurt).

[Jon11582]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say if it doesnt squeal and doesnt shimmy, then you don't need maintenance.

If front pads last 30K-40K, and the rear does 10% of the work, then they should theoretically last 9x as long, assuming the same maintenance schedule for discs as drums. (Pretty much the lifetime of the car).

In fact, it may be more than that because stress from heat is what warps and damages rotors/drums, and there is significantly less heat in the rear since its doing much less work. I would think that the drum themselves should last forever barring any irregularities. Shoes are still worn via friction, and I would think the maitenance schedule would be around the same as pads assuming the same amount of work being done; since its doing that much less work, it should last a whole lot longer.

Also, if in case the rear brakes do fail for lack of maintenance, the ill effects dont seem disasterous, unlike if the front brakes failed. Again, the exception is parking on an incline, where rear brake failure will cause the e-brake to fail and the car to roll down the hill.

Even guys with rear disc's can run into the same issue. If the rear parking drum on the rear disc brakes becomes worn, then even the rear disc equipped car will go rolling down the hill on an incline when parked. However, the drum should never become warn on a rear disc equipped vehicle unless you frequently ride the e-brake or you can't help yourself trying to drifting the Solara by e-brake turning.

[TadS]

My mother's Camry is @ 230k with the orginal drums and shoes, they are still working up to spec. The rear drums / shoes on the Camry platform seem to last a long time.

[steve-o]

I had a camry coupe for 260k miles. 5-spd manual tranny. Never had to do anything with the drums. There was a plug you could remove to adjust the parking brake if I remember correctly. The front discs were replaced twice, so a total of 3 pair total over the 260K miles. I do remember my mechanic telling me the drums should be replaced..

[indiglosolara]

The rear drums should last you a long time. On my Camry the fist rear drum maintiance we did on the car was at 175k miles and they were still on the original.

On my Solara I have right now 75k miles and they are still awesome when i removed the rear drum to inspect the shoes.

Mark - krawzyazn are still good and he has 112k or something like that, and if you know him he drives his car hard as hell.

So I wouldn't worry. But I would pull the drums off when you rotate your tires to check how much pad is left on the shoe.