Aftermarket shoes are already available. I used Raybestos 1059PGs. Drums won't be necessary unless you do what I did and let your brakes go until they are metal-to-metal.
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I hope my brakes don't wear out to the metal but as luck would have it the last time drums needed work was in the dead of winter and I had no covered/inside place to work on them and I was also waylaid with health issues. So we kept driving until the metal sound was unbearable.
Come spring it's new drum time. Since it was a Caravan I had lots of choices at many price points.
I see the pads were cheap enough, $26, it's probably worth replacing them every 50-60k miles for routine maintenance.
I still haven't had to change rear shoes yet. This thread made me want to check a car out with 212000kms/131xxxkms today. They were getting down there and will probably be changed next oil change. Not near metal on metal. But every drum I've pulled regardless of mileage has tons of grooves in them. Gonna have to either replace them or have them turned if they're still within spec when I change the shoes.
I believe the self adjuster work as soon as the brakes are pressed, or ebrake is pulled. While greasing the backing plates(with the shoes still in place) I'd spread the shoes open and the adjuster would lock the shoes in place. I had to fiddle with it to get them pushed pack in place so the drum would go back on. Then hit the brakes a few times and they were re-adjusted. Sure beats backing up and slamming on the brakes like the old starwheel setup that didn't work half the time anyways.
This 15' isn't bad yet, it's used 90% in the city. Car has 80000kms/50000miles. I pulled the drum from the rh side Attachment 10828 The shoes are wearing fairly evenly.(Picture makes it look like front one is worn out but it's not) Attachment 10829
Edit: I forgot to mention the brakes may last longer on our cars because hard braking is recorded on the gps and too many hard braking records is frowned upon. 1000% of the time if a car rear ends another, they have the most hard braking events out of everyone. So they try to stop them before that happens.
I was absolutely AMAZED by the difference in braking I got after replacing the rear shoes. Honestly, I don't think the rear brakes were functioning at all. While the driver's side drum was pretty well ground out, the passenger side had pitting and light rust on the friction surface as though it had not been functioning in quite a while. The shoes were just that worn.
This is, of course, not the car's fault...it's mine. But it's very nice to have brakes at all four corners again!
That is quite interesting to hear. Why do you think the passenger side wasn't adjusting properly?
To be honest, I have always had trouble with it. Shortly after I bought the car I would hear a clicking sound from that wheel when I pulled the e-brake handle, like the adjuster was slipping. I even took it to the dealership while still under warranty to see if they could find any problem. I looked at my e-brake cable adjuster (under the console) and it appeared that there was a lot more slack in the cable on that side. The pivot bar, which I assume should essentially be perpendicular to the axis of the car, was skewed to one side.
I can't be sure, but I believe the adjuster on that side may have been in the released position when I went to take the shoes off.
This might explain why the driver's side exhibited so much more wear than the passenger side, and why the e-brake didn't really function at all despite there being significantly more pad material on the passenger side. I was actually half-expecting the adjuster on that side to be broken, worn out, or defective when I pulled that drum off.