Rear drum brake removal/replacement: An introduction

[Cobrajet]

I had to replace my rear drum brakes. Here are some pictures of the process and some pointers. This is not a full tutorial, but may be helpful to those not familiar with the procedure who are trying to decide whether or not they want to attempt it. I can't say it is difficult, but it does require some patience and a certain familiarity with how drum brakes work. You will need:

-Jack
-Jack stands
-Lug wrench
-New brake shoes
-High Temp axle grease
-1/2" drive breaker bar
-Cheater pipe
-Brake parts cleaner (maybe two cans)
-Torque wrench
-30mm 1/2" drive socket
-Flat screwdriver
-Pliers
-Replacement brake drums (IF your rear brakes are grinding)
-Brushes, rags
-Hammer/mallet

The original brake shoes on my car made it to about 80,000. If you are approaching this mileage and haven't done your rear brakes, you should probably think about it. Unfortunately, I decided to wait until about 84,000 miles to replace mine. Keep in mind all my driving is stop-and-go. They were metal-to-metal on the driver's side, grinding and grating.

DRUM. BRAKES. I really don't know why this archaic 1930s technology still exists in cars this far into the 21st century. I know these cars are cheap, but come on! I have always hated working on drums.

I went with Raybestos 1059PG brake shoes. They were $26 on Ebay. I found some used rear hubs at a wrecking yard. The donor car had been run hard into a telephone pole. It had the same build date as mine, and a VIN that was only 70 units off, so I was confident of the interchange. They were $45 each. Before you scoff, go try to find aftermarket ones. Then price NEW ones. However, if you haven't let your brakes get as bad as mine did you should not need to replace the drums.

First thing to do, obviously, is jack up the car, secure it safely, and remove the rear wheel. Next, remove the hub nut dust cap with a screwdriver and hammer. These can be tricky to get off. Under the dust cap you will find an unstaked, self-locking, 30mm nut. It's on tight. I removed mine pretty easily with a breaker bar and cheater pipe. These should be removed slowly, and by hand. Mitsubishi specifically says not to use power tools when removing these nuts.

After that, the hub should just slide off of the stub axle. Be sure the parking brake is OFF! Here is what I found...







OUCH. Drum is totally wasted. Everything else is covered in a thick crust of worn brake material and metal shavings. Lots of brake parts cleaner and brass brushes resulted in this...





Synthetic lube in the right places...



The pin on the e-brake lever that goes through the brake shoe wouldn't fit. The hole in the new shoe was a few thousandths too small. I had to do a little work with a rat-tail file. Notice the pink lube about halfway down on the e-brake lever. I saw some wear there and figured I'd put a little lube on it.





New brake parts!



Passenger side wasn't nearly as bad...



More new brake parts!



With a little fiddling, both hubs slid right back on after resetting the adjusters. I didn't need to mess with the e-brake cable, as I had not adjusted it before to compensate for wear. Hub nuts are re-torqued to 129 ft/lbs. I didn't see the need to replace these nuts, but if you do the part number is MB584600.

Special thanks to Top Fuel for posting this picture of the rear brake assembly in its as-new state. It was VERY helpful on reassembly.