I regard them with the same antipathy I reserve for contact breaker points...Drum brakes are the spawn of the devil and yet still fitted to so many vehicles - especially lorries. I hate them with a passion!
Lorry brakes are a different thing in they dont use hydraulics. They have a S shaped cam and a shaft out the drum backplate, and this is pushed by a slack adjuster linking it to a air pod, assuming you mean hgv. Then servicing becomes take the drum off, wash it all off with a kettle of water so you dont breath in whats there, smear copperslip where it matters, maybe a new cam bush if its worn and putting new shoes on. With the right girling tool to save your fingers, though we had a adjustable spanner that always slipped at the wrong moment and tried to smash your knuckles on something. They are pretty robust though.Drum brakes are the spawn of the devil and yet still fitted to so many vehicles - especially lorries. I hate them with a passion!
heh, on the 101 it has twin leading shoe drums up front, so two slaves. Inexplicably at design time someone thought it was a good idea to put the bleed nipple on the lowest point of the lower cylinder and feed it from the upper cylinder. And people wonder why 101 owners dream of zeus front disc conversions & they have that "cow of a thing to bleed" reputation...Another thing with landrovers and a few other trucks is the position of the brake slave cylinder, there are quite a few makers that dont fit the cylinder at 12 oclock which leaves a small air pocket that wont bleed out of one piston . You can either jack the car up to correct this prior to bleeding or clamp the pistons back and bleed before fitting the shoes. Some of the older landrovers were piped so the bleed nipples were facing down which meant the only way to bleed them was to pump fluid up through the system and vent into the master cylinder, god only knows what the design team were thinking
and silently praying outside while its being tested.
heh, on the 101 it has twin leading shoe drums up front, so two slaves. Inexplicably at design time someone thought it was a good idea to put the bleed nipple on the lowest point of the lower cylinder and feed it from the upper cylinder.
Well my findings are exactly the opposite and I have bleed the odd brake (or thousand), clutches can be particularly bad coz you cant use the 'firing' method of bleeding, but that can be virtually impossible especially on your own and that also applies with brakes .Actually that's not the problem it would seem to be.
Not argueing but try bleeding a motorcycle front caliper... they dont easily, from my experience. If on a vehicle the nipple is wrong ie caliper fitted to the wrong side , or w/ cyl that the adjuster holds it slightly expanded, you will not bleed it, again easily. I have had to remove them before now and turn them up so nipple is at the top. or as I say, if syringe is available push fresh fluid through the 'wrong' way and into the master.The narrow pipes and high surface tension of brake fluid allow air bubbles to be pushed downhill.
I think you will find most mechanics think just the opposite, especially parking brakes which only work on the discs, mostly by good luck, most of the time.Drum brakes are the spawn of the devil and yet still fitted to so many vehicles - especially lorries. I hate them with a passion!
Most drum in discs are garbage imo.
Agreed - on a motorbike, reverse bleeding with a syringe is the smart way, especially if you're filling a system up from empty. But the best device on a bike is banjo bolt with bleed nipple on the connection to the master cylinder. Fill the system up with a syringe, then bleed it quickly and easily with the banjo bolt bleed nipple. Bleed the last bits of air that are trapped at the top of the calipers via the bleed nipples and you're done.Not argueing but try bleeding a motorcycle front caliper... they dont easily, from my experience if the nipple is wrong ie caliper fitted to the wrong side , or w/ cyl that the adjuster holds it slightly expanded, you will not bleed it, again easily. I have had to remove them before now and turn them up so nipple is at the top. or as I say, if syringe is available push fresh fluid through the 'wrong' way and into the master.
Well my findings are exactly the opposite and I have bleed the odd brake (or thousand), clutches can be particularly bad coz you cant use the 'firing' method of bleeding, but that can be virtually impossible especially on your own and that also applies with brakes .
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So i got it all on and all springs into place, drum didnt fit on, couldnt adjust anything.
Realised that they all look identical but the snail adjuster peg is a couple mm to the side on 2 the ones that were on there previously were weird though, the tapperd edge goes to the top right? They had one taperd edge and one flat edge but the pegs were in the right place i copied how they had ground off abit of the hook on the springs, that made it a hell of a lot easier.
So, all sorted and working now?