Now, I'm the wrong side of 45 and I was born in the 60's. I grew up with the best and worse of car design, and had always dreaded changing rear brake shoes and drums. Well as time went by rear discs became the norm, HURRAY FOR TECHNOLOGY. So when I decided to change the fabias rear brakes I thought "no problems you've done this before and you've got all the tools". Well what a mistake to make, all I can say is why? Why are those f@**ING springs so tight? Why so much force needed to pull the handbrake spring back to hook it on to the new shoes......... I felt like I'd been in the ring with Mike Tyson and not won a point.  All done but f@*k me not again. 

 

The old shoes apart from on the rivets they were also siezed up solid and the drums were on 205mm diameter, that's 4.5mm more than the allowed max. 

yes they are horrible. I managed to pop out a piston from the slave cylinder when i did mine and got very annoyed with it

Discs are sooo much nicer

Hmmmmmmm, discs, yes please. On the up side the hand brake now works really well and the foot brake works better too. But my god why so tight? 

Did you slacken it off loads centrally inside the car before starting?

Yep did all that but because the shoes were siezed solid and at the max adjustment everything was under super tention. As soon as the old shoes were off all went well. 

These help a lot if you do them regularly, especially on the bigger stufff.  

I bought a DIYer/poverty version of that , the Tee bar on mine is a lot thinner than that one so a padded glove would help, in the end, after buying a new set of shoes at a special price deal via ECP, I got off with removing one hub nut to see if that let me see what I needed to get at to free things up a bit, that worked and I eased the adjuster up, did the same on the other side without taking the hub nut off, so I was left with a new set of shoes and a spare hub nut for, or when the next time. It was my daughter's late 2009 Ibiza and the handbrake was okay, but I knew that the last time I had checked these brakes the auto adjusters would not move at all, so I needed to do something out of common sense, before its next MOT.

 

I think that what made me smell a rat wrt difficulties was that fact that typically there is an option when buying sets of rear shoes, for this group of cars, either, as I did very cheaply by just buying shoes, or more expensively by buying a fully assembled kit of parts!

 

Edit:- It took me about 35>40 years for me to wise up and buy one of these hold down spring removal/fitting tools, maybe I just enjoyed nipping my finger when using ordinary pliers, or spending hours retrieving the misplaced retainer plates, or just too many memories of doing this sort of job in winter and losing the feeling on my fingers and not knowing when I had managed to hold the hold down pillar or if it was rotating while I tried to rotate the retainer plate!

Edited 14 November, 20178 yr by rum4mo

1 hour ago, rum4mo said:

I bought a DIYer/poverty version of that , the Tee bar on mine is a lot thinner than that one so a padded glove would help, in the end, after buying a new set of shoes at a special price deal via ECP, I got off with removing one hub nut to see if that let me see what I needed to get at to free things up a bit, that worked and I eased the adjuster up, did the same on the other side without taking the hub nut off, so I was left with a new set of shoes and a spare hub nut for, or when the next time. It was my daughter's late 2009 Ibiza and the handbrake was okay, but I knew that the last time I had checked these brakes the auto adjusters would not move at all, so I needed to do something out of common sense, before its next MOT.

 

I think that what made me smell a rat wrt difficulties was that fact that typically there is an option when buying sets of rear shoes, for this group of cars, either, as I did very cheaply by just buying shoes, or more expensively by buying a fully assembled kit of parts!

 

Edit:- It took me about 35>40 years for me to wise up and buy one of these hold down spring removal/fitting tools, maybe I just enjoyed nipping my finger when using ordinary pliers, or spending hours retrieving the misplaced retainer plates, or just too many memories of doing this sort of job in winter and losing the feeling on my fingers and not knowing when I had managed to hold the hold down pillar or if it was rotating while I tried to rotate the retainer plate!

Never even thought of a tool like that. As we say in the council, learning has occurred. 

Nothing's better than having the right tools for the job. 

 

The auto adjusters are useless on these, you will probably find your self in the same boat in a year or two. 

5 hours ago, lupoluke said:

Nothing's better than having the right tools for the job. 

 

The auto adjusters are useless on these, you will probably find your self in the same boat in a year or two. 

 

I find them to work fine. I like the design of them, far better than those ones that use a threaded ratchet wheel like on Astras etc.

 

When I did my Fabia I fitted new shoes with adjuster wedges backed fully off. Refitted drums, pumped brake pedal and the adjusters clicked like a ratchet and the brakes adjusted themselves just fine. Now that they are properly bedded in they are great. Drove a MK2 Fabia 1.6 Sport today and the brakes were nowhere near as good as mine. Was quite surprised! The MK2 was recently fully serviced at a Skoda dealer (although I suppose that's not saying much. Ha!).

Edited 15 November, 20178 yr by TMB

I always used Bahco sidecutters.  The tool would be helpful.

"I find them to work fine. I like the design of them, far better than those ones that use a threaded ratchet wheel like on Astras etc"

 

Have to agree on that one. Me and the wife have hard several Astra over the years (at least 6) and the screw thread set up was always jamming up with dirt and dust. 

 

The fabia adjuster is simple and can't really go wrong. Spring pulling a notched wedge, just good old mechanical force and gravity. 

4 hours ago, TripleMcB said:

"I find them to work fine. I like the design of them, far better than those ones that use a threaded ratchet wheel like on Astras etc"

 

Have to agree on that one. Me and the wife have hard several Astra over the years (at least 6) and the screw thread set up was always jamming up with dirt and dust. 

 

The fabia adjuster is simple and can't really go wrong. Spring pulling a notched wedge, just good old mechanical force and gravity. 

 

Yep

For those having problems with Fabia rear drum brakes& shoes- BEWARE of the old "it's a real mini" ones. I grew up with drum brakes front & rear and the rears on the Fabia are a dream to work on. Only problem is that if you're a bit slow getting the new shoes back on, then the pressure in the system makes the cylinders start to pop out. Possibly a function of  ABS & servo with vacuum, but I've never had problems on my older cars ( those with both Discs front + servo ) with the cylinders, so possibly it's a function of servo and ABS. ( Might be a job for emptying servo and using a restrainer ( e.g. cable tie) on the cylinders ,whilst the shoes are off.

Only problem is assembling the shoes with the top spring and adjuster. I got round it by taping the spring into position till shoes were in place just prior to refitting drum. But in all as rear & drum brakes go -an almost pleasant experience.

For those bemoaning the adjustment system, try the old square backplate adjuster, where a change of shoes meant a long time with a can of WD40 AND LOTS OF EFFORT getting them to move freely.

Edited 15 November, 20178 yr by VWD

I'd forgotten about proper mini front drums. I remember fitting new brake hoses, where you have to turn the whole drum including the backplate  to get them on.  

 

What ever happened to rain water sloshing from back to front over rubber mats? 

 

Ah those were the days,  had good knees then too.  : )

20 minutes ago, VWD said:

Only problem is that if you're a bit slow getting the new shoes back on, then the pressure in the system makes the cylinders start to pop out.

 

I wrap insulating tape around the cylinder, fit the shoes with insulating tape still on the cylinder then cut it and press the pistons in to remove the tape. Works like a charm.

I don't have any good memories of fighting with the expanding cone adjusters on Series 2a LRs handbrakes, just bad ones!

 

Edit:-  but it made me beer and cigs money!

Edited 15 November, 20178 yr by rum4mo

1 hour ago, TMB said:

 

I wrap insulating tape around the cylinder, fit the shoes with insulating tape still on the cylinder then cut it and press the pistons in to remove the tape. Works like a charm.

Next idea when shoes need replacing. Nice idea.

Adjusting the balljoints on old Minis was my pet hate. You had to use shims to get the right preload. It was a right fart about and they used to keep going out of adjustment. God I hated working on old Minis. Fitting rear subframes was another joyous activity. Ha!

I remember. With nasty memories. I had many a nasty hand after working on any part of my mini van . I then graduated to Maxis, and found they were a nice thing to work on. Apart from the brake bleed nipples which always seemed to seize.

Just now, VWD said:

I remember. With nasty memories. I had many a nasty hand after working on any part of my mini van . I then graduated to Maxis, and found they were a nice thing to work on. Apart from the brake bleed nipples which always seemed to seize.

 

I had a Mini Van too

 

Speaking of bleed nipples - the rear ones on Minis were really thin and used to snap off. Fun times. lol

11 hours ago, VWD said:

I remember. With nasty memories. I had many a nasty hand after working on any part of my mini van . I then graduated to Maxis, and found they were a nice thing to work on. Apart from the brake bleed nipples which always seemed to seize.

 

I had a maxi. A 1750, but i upgraded her to HLS specs with twin SU carbs, HS6's I think, also cloth interior instead of vinal. I also had a cassette player and TWO speakers!

Edited 16 November, 20178 yr by TripleMcB

Wasn't the Maxi one of the first cars to have a 5-speed gearbox?

Ah brake shoes, the stuff of nightmares - especially when it comes to

1) remembering where all the springs went

2) getting those piddly little retainers in (push and twist cap on the springs)

3) getting the drums off in the first place can be a right PITA depending on the car (who decided to integrate the wheel bearing in the drum????)

 

as for stopping the cylinders popping out, a good strong elastic band works well, plus it can be left in place. Alternatively a strip cut from a bicycle inner tube works well too

1 hour ago, TMB said:

Wasn't the Maxi one of the first cars to have a 5-speed gearbox?

 

I'm not too sure but it was the first commercially available 5 speed not an option.