Brake Cylinders
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 1,209
From: TX
Welcome to the board.
Easy to describe, can be a real pain to actually accomplish due to rust rearing it's ugly head. Do one side at a time so you can use the other side as a reference for reassembly.
Starting a day or 2 earlier, soak the hard line to cylinder connection with penetrant. Even then, it's a crap shoot a lot of times if that connection is going to come loose or not. Buy a drum brake small parts kit. A lot of the little clips, rods, springs will be worn/rusted... ready to fall apart.
Use a flare wrench to loosen the connection at the cylinder. If it won't come loose, soak it some more, do the rest of the disassembly, then come back and try again. You might have to resort to curved jaw Vice Grips, but too much clamping force can oval the fitting making it harder to remove.
A lot of times you will have to go in thru the oval hole in the backing plate to spin the star on the adjuster in order to bring in the shoes to allow drum removal. Might have to soak the inner register of the drum too, cause it can rust itself to the axle index. BFH might have to be brought in to play if drum is really stuck. Watch for thin clips on the wheel studs. These are put on there to retain the drums on the assembly line. If your diff is unmolested, might still have them. Some people also put them back on after a brake job (unnecessary).
Disassemble the shoe assembly. Note that the rear shoe has a longer lining than the front (unless someone installed a 9" diff, Ford uses different color/hardness linings of the same size). This is cause it does most of the work. Get it wrong on the reinstall and the smaller lining shoe will get eaten up quickly.
R&R the cylinder, reassemble the brake shoe assembly, reinstall drums. There are special tools you can buy at Autozone, etc, designer specifically for drum brake jobs that will make the job easier. Bleed the brakes, you're done.
But like I said, Murphy has a habit of showing up uninvited on wheel cylinder R&Rs. That's why a lot of times I will just buy rebuild kits. These are just the seals, dust boots and the center spring. I don't remove the cylinders, I hone them while still installed, clean completely with BrakeKleen followed by brake fluid, then install the new parts. If the cylinder walls haven't been eaten too bad by corrosion, you can just do this. If you open them up and see big pits, you have no choice but to replace.
Easy to describe, can be a real pain to actually accomplish due to rust rearing it's ugly head. Do one side at a time so you can use the other side as a reference for reassembly.
Starting a day or 2 earlier, soak the hard line to cylinder connection with penetrant. Even then, it's a crap shoot a lot of times if that connection is going to come loose or not. Buy a drum brake small parts kit. A lot of the little clips, rods, springs will be worn/rusted... ready to fall apart.
Use a flare wrench to loosen the connection at the cylinder. If it won't come loose, soak it some more, do the rest of the disassembly, then come back and try again. You might have to resort to curved jaw Vice Grips, but too much clamping force can oval the fitting making it harder to remove.
A lot of times you will have to go in thru the oval hole in the backing plate to spin the star on the adjuster in order to bring in the shoes to allow drum removal. Might have to soak the inner register of the drum too, cause it can rust itself to the axle index. BFH might have to be brought in to play if drum is really stuck. Watch for thin clips on the wheel studs. These are put on there to retain the drums on the assembly line. If your diff is unmolested, might still have them. Some people also put them back on after a brake job (unnecessary).
Disassemble the shoe assembly. Note that the rear shoe has a longer lining than the front (unless someone installed a 9" diff, Ford uses different color/hardness linings of the same size). This is cause it does most of the work. Get it wrong on the reinstall and the smaller lining shoe will get eaten up quickly.
R&R the cylinder, reassemble the brake shoe assembly, reinstall drums. There are special tools you can buy at Autozone, etc, designer specifically for drum brake jobs that will make the job easier. Bleed the brakes, you're done.
But like I said, Murphy has a habit of showing up uninvited on wheel cylinder R&Rs. That's why a lot of times I will just buy rebuild kits. These are just the seals, dust boots and the center spring. I don't remove the cylinders, I hone them while still installed, clean completely with BrakeKleen followed by brake fluid, then install the new parts. If the cylinder walls haven't been eaten too bad by corrosion, you can just do this. If you open them up and see big pits, you have no choice but to replace.
Last edited by angel71rs; Nov 15, 2006 at 05:18 PM.
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