Rusty brake drums

[krazykev]

Today I went to fit a new handbrake cable to my fathers 2006 Fabia (80000 miles).

I thought it was going to be a straight forward job.

How wrong i was.

I put the car on stands to remove the drums and linings and what greeted me

totally shocked me.  Both drums had a very thick layer of rust around the edge of the drum.

It was so thick that it had been rubbing the back plate.  There was no signs of wear to the actual

working surface of the drum and the cylinders were OK.

I had to get an angle grinder to the drums to remove the thick crusty layer of rust to stop

it rubbing against the back plate.

If the car was 50 years old it would not of surprised me but on a 8 year old car its not something

that you would expect to find.

To add insult to injury the little retaining spring caps had also rusted through on a couple of cups

and also one of the thin adjuster springs had also rusted away.

Lucky enough it is only £7 for a complete spring set so it was a quick step to my local motortrade factor

to purchase a new spring kit.

Well all is now up and running but it will need a new set of linings in a few months.

[hutchysrs50]

It's not just Skoda, the rust build up is heavy on every car with drums I've worked on over a few years old, it say about 4/5mm of thick rust!

[SKYHAWK]

I got a complete rear disc axel with callipers and pads if interested?

[krazykev]

It's not just Skoda, the rust build up is heavy on every car with drums I've worked on over a few years old, it say about 4/5mm of thick rust!

i got rid of a 1998 renault scenic in 2010 and there was no heavy rust on the drums.  the same applied to my peugeot 405, nissan sunny. renault laguna all of which were at least 10 years old.  best drums i have ever worked on were on the old fiat 124 based Lada's which were aluminium with a steel insert.

what i will do if i need to replace the drums on my fathers fabia is to paint them with heat proof paint.

what i have noticed with modern cars is that disc's seem to wear out very quickly.  my last car which was a 2010 citroen c3 picasso needed new disc's and pads at under 15000 miles.  i think it is due to very hard pad materials

[SKYHAWK]

the rears last forever fronts do where quicker as that's where most of the braking force is ur 40 miles from me if interested in this axel its complete with everything you need to convert to rear discs 

[rum4mo]

Keeping drums, even new ones looking good for a few years, nice try, these parts are subject to really nasty abuse as they do get wet and never get hot enough to dry the moisture off completely. I tried to tidy up the drums on a 4  year old Ibiza last year, I scrubbed the drums clean as I thought, using a wire brush on an angle grinder, cleaned the surface up, applied Hammerite rust proofing/undercoat - 2 coats, applied grey semi-flexible underbody paint (used that to get the colour correct), but 6 months later they are again turning rusty!!  I will probably try again this summer.

[punyXpress]

Try putting the handbrake on from time to time to dry them out.