Ok, had a heck of a noise coming from the driver's side rear drum so I jacked it up, pulled the drum, and found a broken spring. Got new shoes & spring kit and got to it.

However.. it's been 30 years at least since I did rear brakes. Front disc no problem, and really not much of a problem with the drum brakes, except:

The hold-down spring and hold-down cup (holds the shoe to the backing plate). I bought a tool (cup shaped) to remove the cup and it worked fine. But, I couldn't get the new spring on with the new cup. The tool I bought was worthless. (Autozone) Is there a special tool to help? I recall way back doing that and I could push it in with my fingers or needle-nose pliers, but these "foreign made" springs are pretty heavy. After over an hour I gave up and used the old rusty spring, which compressed easily. So, I'm wondering; What is the best way to get those suckers on without going crazy? Brakes now work fine BTW.

 

Hey DaveO

I'm doing drums tonight and was on here looking for some answers ALSO!

Looks like very FEW people do their own drum brakes if even the discs...I'm going to be freezing my *** off in my garage~!

 

I agree! No answers generally indicates that people just don't have answer. I'm surprised as I'm sure that there are some here that do their own brakes, drum or otherwise.

Best I can tell you is to try the auto parts store and see if they have any gadget to help out with that. It's really the toughest part of a drum brake repair. That and remembering what goes where.
I took off both drums and did one at a time which gives you a good reference if you get stuck by looking at the other. Good luck! That's not a fun job in the cold.

 

ive never used any special tool to do the drums, vice grips and needle nose pliers.

i want to say the pice you speak of i just used my needle nose pliers and pushed then twist so that it catches the piece right.

as for putting them back together... i refer to the other side of the truck until one side is done then go to the other side and do it

 

I must have missed this thread. I've not used any special tools or anything else. I think somewhere someone made a how-to writeup for doing the rear brakes.

 

 

I used a spring tool and had no problems getting mine back together. However, that was at fairly low miles, so I reused the original springs. Maybe you need to get OE springs or better aftermarket springs instead.

 

When i did mine i remember it being a pain to put the new springs on. I was just yanking and prying on things with needle nose pliers and eventually it went on (just has to line up right).

 

Well it wasn't too bad in the cold garage I have one of those Propane heaters that you attach right to your tank...worked great.

As far as all the "no special tools" people...you must all be mechanics that do it everyday. I bought the spring compression tool and the funny set of pliers/pry bar tool. I needed both to make the job MUCH easier, I can't imagine pulling the return springs with a set of needle nose!

The biggest thing I noticed and maybe some can speak to this is that the drivers side was worn about 20-30% MORE than the passenger side...now I did notice the past few weeks some serious issues with the parking brake releasing and still being "stuck" so maybe the extra wear came in that time period.

Also I adjust the "self adjust" mechanism all the way IN and still had trouble getting one of the drums on, I had to beat it on a little...then the brakes were pretty stiff for about 5 miles of driving but they seem OK now. Any thoughts?

 

My drums were hard to put on at first too, even with the adjuster all the way in. However, there are 2 different size drums on rangers.

 

I've never changed them on the Ranger, but I usually use the tool that looks like a screw driver, but has a socket type thing for the retaining springs on the handle end, and a hook on the other end to stretch the return springs over the posts. It's always worked for me, though admittedly with varying degrees of aggravation depending on shape/quality of the components.

Don

-

 

Well you'd have to be pretty drunk to NOT notice that you have either 9" or 10" drums...thats a pretty noticeable difference

 

lol very true