Drum Brakes

[webslinger08]

I replaced the pads on the left rear, everything appears to back in correctly, but the drum won't fit over the pads. The are as far together as the adjuster will allow. Any suggestions?

[Cobrajet]

I replaced the pads on the left rear, everything appears to back in correctly, but the drum won't fit over the pads. The are as far together as the adjuster will allow. Any suggestions?

Some people have had to loosen the e-brake cable by using the adjuster at the rear of the center console.

[Top_Fuel]

...the drum won't fit...

I just disassembled the rear brakes on my 2015 for the first time last weekend. I took a lot of pictures so I would remember all of this for next time. Here are a few ideas...

EDIT/TIP - If you are using aftermarket brake shoes, Mirage owners have discovered that more than one brand of aftermarket shoes don't fit on these cars right out of the box. That's the first thing to check. Do a search on this website and make sure someone else has successfully installed the brand of brake shoes you are using. THIS post is a good example of what doesn't work.

1. Clean up the rust ridge on the drum

Take some sandpaper and clean off the ridge of rust at the edge of the drum (next to where the brake shoes contact the drum). This will help the drum slide over your new shoes more easily. Here is my drum after I did this...



This will also make it easier to slide your drums off the next time you need to look at your back brakes. Do this any time you have your drums off and it will make your life a lot easier in the future.



2. Set the automatic adjuster at the minimum position for 2014-15 North America Mirages

This is kinda tricky with the 2014-2015 North America mechanisms. It sounds like you already did this. But for anyone else reading this in the US/Canada with a 2014-2015 Mirage...

Here is what the 2014-2015 (North America) drum brake automatic adjusters look like:



If your adjusters look like these images below (you can see the teeth that the arrow is pointing to), then your adjusters haven't been retracted to the minimum position and your drums won't fit if this is the case. These are what my adjusters looked like on my 2015 with 115,000 miles on the original fairly worn brake shoes...





If you have the automatic adjusters retracted to their minimum position (which is what you want when installing new brake shoes), then you should NOT see the teeth of the adjuster mechanisms sticking out like you can in the 2 photos above.

Here's a (somewhat blurry) photo of my 2015 brakes when the car was brand new. If you look close, you can see how the adjuster piece with the teeth on it is not sticking out...






3. Make sure the brake shoes are centered on the backing plate

Once the new brake shoes are installed, both shoes can still move right/left and up/down a slight amount on the backing plate. Your problem may just be that the shoes aren’t perfectly positioned right now. This is usually easy to see by sticking your head into the rear fender-well and looking behind the drum as you slide it on. You may have to nudge the shoes right/left or up/down to center them in the drum. Once you do that, the drums should slip on. I had to do this myself to get my drums back on.


Once the drums are back on, get in the car and step on the brake pedal hard a few times. If you have a 2014-2015 built for North America, you may hear a clicking coming from the rear brakes when you do this. This is the automatic adjusters moving out against the brake shoes to take up the slack.



Edit - The OP has a 2015...so all of the above should apply to his car. If you have a 2017+ Mirage, then #2 above should just tell you to make sure your star wheel adjuster has been turned to the minimum position. Recall that the drum brake adjusters are star wheels beginning in 2017 for US/Canada models...

[Top_Fuel]

Some people have had to loosen the e-brake cable by using the adjuster at the rear of the center console.

I didn't think about that...but if you adjusted your parking brake after your brake shoes had worn down a little, this could come back and bite you in the butt when installing new shoes. Making a mental note because at some point in the past, I did this myself.

[webslinger08]

Thank you for the photos, I put it all together again, loosened up the emergency brake a bit, pumped the brakes and heard the adjuster click a few times. I then loosened the adjuster as much as I could, and then the hub fit

[Eggman]

Thank you for the photos, I put it all together again, loosened up the emergency brake a bit, pumped the brakes and heard the adjuster click a few times. I then loosened the adjuster as much as I could, and then the hub fit

Thanks for updating us. Too often someone asks for advice, gets lots of good advice but doesn’t always report back letting us know which worked.