DH757

Short:
- Drums/Shoe Brakes New
- Drum Brakes/Scraping Grinding Noise
- Pedal Down to the Floor

Long (Best to Read):
Hello everyone please bare with me as I explain what happened in this long story.

My father and me today decided to change my EM2's worn out brakes from the previous owner.

We've been at it since 8AM, and it's not until now 8PM that we finished but to no avail!

The rear drum brakes are 7 1/2 inches. There was no shorter brake shoe that needed to be facing the front of the car, they were all the same length.

After having installed the new shoes everything looked identical to the pictures of the brakes before.

It wasn't until we came to installing the drums. We had decided to use the old ones that were previously installed. Tires go back on and out we go for a test drive.

First thing I noticed was my brake pedal fell all the way to the floor! I would need to slam my foot all the way to slow it down even from 5MPH. I'm just guessing that the system needs to be bled for that.

Now the real shocker to me was that I heard a huge grinding noise behind me! I was going down the street and it became too awkward to continue, I decided to back up and head to the garage again. While backing up the right wheel stopped as if I had hit the ebrake on full.

We spent countless times removing the drums and then we went to buy new drums at Auto Zone to see if that would fix the problem. Still, same problem happened again! My dad a couple weeks prior had been trying to get the drums out with a flat head screw driver and by trying to pry them open from the top, eventually he left the back lining a little bent , it wasn't a problem with the older brakes that it was bent. Soon after our neighbor came by with a couple of bolts that were to be used to pry out the drums.

I'm not sure if it's scraping the lining or if it's just the shoes themselves rubbing against the drum. Thing is they can get really loose and still scrape.

After countless tries, for my rear driver drum we installed it correctly and it spun freely with no noise, however my dad loosened the adjustment on the shoes to make them not too tight. We found out that we had to place it very well centered and pushed in, in order for it to not make the noise and spin nicely.

The problem has persisted on the passengers rear drum however after having tried to place it on various times.

I'm having a more professional mechanic come in tomorrow afternoon to check it out. For now what do you guys think it could be?
I need to have it fixed by Monday to go to work.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

drum brakes are a huge pain and there are alot of steps i see missing. for example, there is a procedure you must do for the "self adjusting" mechanism and also a screw in the drum housing to tighten or loosen them. and you prolly shouldve bought a new hardware kit with springs and stuff. i dont know the specifics having never done shoes before, but it can take the pros 3-4 hrs to work on it.

DH757

I did tug on the ebrake handle a couple times in order to have it try and self adjust. At one point after loosening them too far, my ebrake went so far up that it was like 25 clicks way over the original 12 i had before! I had them readjusted then it only required 8 clicks which I believe is the norm?

I just want to get that grinding noise to disappear, it slows down the car when it runs. I need to rev in the 2.5k RPM's to get it to move much.

What do you recommend about the bleeding to readjust the pedal? We tried bleeding it but I think we were doing it wrong.

After a brake job is an alignment recommended?

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

look up "gravity bleeding" on google. it takes a while but is almost guaranteed to work even if you know nothing about bleeding or havent done it before. im planning to try this pretty soon too. the grinding i dont know, could be wrong size shoes or bad hardware that is too loose and not holding the shoes properly. no alignment is needed after brake jobs.

DH757

Thanks! I will try that, also I'm almost about to work on it again. However I read that you need to have a piece of wood under the pedal so it doesn't sink to the floor? I read that it's bad? We kept trying to bleed them by stepping on it all the way and I fear that it could've caused damage.

I don't see any leaks right now though. How big of a spacer do I need?

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

I've done this job... its a complete royal utter pain in the *** like you wouldnt believe. It's hard to tell what you did wrong over the net but you need to reassemble everything EXACTLY like it was before you took it apart. All new hardware is a necessity. There is a great DIY on this website that you can use to maybe figure out a step you missed.

https://www.civicforums.com/forums/4...placement.html

I hope this helps.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

i know you can screw up the master cylinder if you bleed brakes wrong. so hopefully that didnt happen. thats why i would only do a gravity bleed if i end up doing it myself. it will take all day, but at least there is almost no chance of messing up and you will have a rock hard pedal.

DH757

Well I had the mechanic come over, he fixed the noise and adjusted the brakes perfectly so now I only have 7 clicks to pull on my hand brake.

He bled the brakes, but I'm not sure if he did it right. The brake pedal is a little better than what it was before and the car stops and all. But I remember that my previous braking was much stronger with a lighter foot when it had the old brakes.

He didn't use a bleed kit, he just told me to pump it 3 times and then he'd open the bleed nut and some liquid would pore out. He did it only 3 times to the side that would spurt it out then he closed it and called it a day. I asked him if it needed more bleeding he said no that it was fine.

I'm not sure if that's the correct procedure. I think u'd have to see it through the tubing for air bubbles?

Brakes are tight and great, just a mild spongy brake pedal is all. I'll have a look at that tomorrow again without messing with the drums again.

For now I'm going back to work in the morning.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

it does take time for the new brake pads and shoes to bed in properly so you get the maximum braking effect. otherwise the two surfaces are not perfectly mated yet. that being said, most shops are just lazy when it comes to bleeding brakes and will say "its good enough" and stop when they should be bleeding more. the drums also dont get alot of use, so you could use the ebrake to slow you down sometimes to break them in faster.