brake drum life span

Hi all,

I am continually having issues with the rear brakes on my hippo, hand brake sticking and making a nasty noise (sounds like a shot bearing). Brakes as a whole not as good as they should be and the hand brake is only slightly better than useless.

At the moment, the back end of the car swings left when braking hard (the noise is from the right, I suspect that brake ain't working)

it occurrd to me that the only part that has not been changed in the past 115,000 miles is the drums and who knows if they where ever changed in the 100k before then!

So how long do the drums last? Do I need to be putting new on?

Thanks

Dave

My drums were changed at 103,000 miles with little sign of wear, the only reason they were changed was because they were badly rusted externally. It sounds like you need to strip and inspect the rear brakes before you guess what the fault may be, could be a seized wheel cylinder or a faulty automatic adjuster.

completely agree, there is an issue with uneven braking effort and all moving parts need to be rechecked.

bare in mind that the wheel receiving the most braking effort tends to move toward the centre line of the car.

they are stamped with max size inside

Wandering slightly off the OP but I take it that the rear drums can be rubbed down and painted with heat resistant paint without any problems?
My drums are looking a little rusty and scabby so thought this would both tidy them up and prolong the life of them.

Modchop said:

Wandering slightly off the OP but I take it that the rear drums can be rubbed down and painted with heat resistant paint without any problems?
My drums are looking a little rusty and scabby so thought this would both tidy them up and prolong the life of them.

Click to expand...

My drums spoilt the look (in my opinion) of the car due to the amount of external corrosion, as the brakes had to be stripped down (due to sticking parking brake) anyway I decided to replace the drums and shoes. I also sprayed the new drums with black heat resistant woodburner paint which has now been on for over twelve months and shows no signs of rust. There is usually no need to replace the drums due to external corrosion just clean off the rust and spray with heat resistant paint, it would probably take many many years before the external corrosion became a safety issue.

had a similar problem, i stripped everything down, found i had a ceased handbrake cable acutator, so my handbrake wasnt releasing properly, had a lot of binding, so best thing is to remove everything, wd4 all moving parts and clean them up, re assemble, adjust the shoes then the handbrake using the procedure in the haynes. and you should be ok.
If you need to, renew the shoes.