gettin frusterated with drum brakes, wheel cylinder problems Options

[Valo666]

OK...so about 2 weeks or so ago we went to get sarah's coupe safetied and they said it needed a new front caliper, tires and a new drum...So as we were leaving the shop..we poped a wheel cylinder...they said they didnt touch the brakes except to inspect them...So i ordered a new wheel cylinder..put it on...every thing was fine..put on the new drum, put the new caliper on, new wheel cylinder...So we went to bleed the brakes...bled the passanger side wheel cylinder...and as we were bleeding it...i hear a popping sound. so i checked..the new wheel cylinder blew. So i ordered another one..put it on...adjusted up the brakes, put the drum on, made sure its touching/rubbing a bit, went out..bled the brakes..got fully done..then relized my buddy is a idiot and only pumped the brakes one time then held..so we had to rebleed the system...bled them all out...got to the drivers side caliper..and all i see is a puddel starting under the rear drivers side drum *one that popped last time*...so i pull the drum off, check it out and i dont see any majour leaks or if the cylinder was fully popped *last time the one side popped right out*. So i kinda just touched the rubber boot around the end..and it was full of brake fluid..so i got it all out...and the brake pressure was good, so i decided to start it up, go in reverse and pull up on the e-brake to adjust the shoes up...so i did it, drove forward, went to put on the brakes and the pedal just kinda went down again slowly...so i looked back and sure enough the wheel cylinder is leaking out from under the seal...so im gettin really frusterated with this.

There are only 2 things that i could think of that would make the brakes keep blowing...one im thinking that since there wasnt/only a tiny tiny bit of lube on the backing plate for the shoes to slide across...

and two..the pad are a bit worn thin...not tooo bad..like still above minimum specs by a bit...but nothing too bad...so im gonna be puttin new pads on, replacing ALL of the springs with new ones *i only did some of the springs hold down springs, return spring, starwheel adjuster spring*...so hopefully that will fix it.

Any one have any ideas of why it would keep blowing??...i used line wrenches, i installed the wheel cylinder properly, and ive done drum brakes maybe 20 times b4. I just think its kinda odd that we had amazing brakes b4 this inspection..then within 5 min of gettin our car back the brakes just blow.

[Valo666]

bump

[soulshadow]

You did install the brake shoe right, RIGHT? If you did make sure the rubber seal that actually holds the 2 wheel cylinder in is not broken or torn. Sometimes you have to adjust the brake shoes tension there is a dial on them to tighten the shoes and align it with the drum. If you don't do this properly you can wear out the shoe pads in one day or it might not even work at all.

Make sure the shoe pads fit in perfectly with the wheel cylinders too. You can't have it mis-aligned or you run into the problem of POPPING the cylinders. (which can be popped back in I've done it B4)

[Valo666]

You did install the brake shoe right, RIGHT? If you did make sure the rubber seal that actually holds the 2 wheel cylinder in is not broken or torn. Sometimes you have to adjust the brake shoes. There is a dial on them to tighten the shoes and align it with the drum. If you don't do this properly you can wear out the shoe pads in one day or it might not even work at all.

Make sure the shoe pads fit in perfectly with the wheel cylinders too. You can't have it mis-aligned or you run into the problem of POPPING the cylinders. (which can be popped back in I've done it B4)

i did install them right/didnt take them fully off. I also checked the seal, aswell as the tensioner was set properly aswell. Also the shoes were adjusted properly to fit into the wheel cylinder. Im thinkin what the problem might be is that there is no lubrication and some rust starting on the backing plate. So im gonna take the shoes off fully today and replace them with all new springs, aswell as i got some brake lube. So im gonna take a wire brush to the backing plate where the shoes sit on...so hopefully that will all fix it.

This post has been edited by Valo666: Sep 12, 2007 - 12:49 PM

[Valo666]

so good news, i took a wire brush to the backing plate, lube it up, put new pads on, new wheel cylinder, drum and it all works now. We just gravity bled the system, but we still had some air in the system, so we did a regular bleed on it. But it all works perfectly now. So its now sittin at the shop waiting to get re-tested for safety. Im probably gonna be doing the shoes and drum on the other side soon too. But every thing is working perfectly.