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I read this thread about a week ago, when I was having front and rear brakes done. I just opened the box that my old rear shoes are in (to return for the core). My car has 125,000 miles on it, and I believe the rear brakes are probably original. At 11 years old, there's practically no wear on them at all. I suppose it's possible I had them replaced a few years ago, I don't recall. Either way, yeah, our rear brake shoes just do not wear.

Can anyone say if the rear adjuster wheel is accessible without removing the drum, if you jack up the rear of the car, so you can get in there with an adjuster tool? If so, I might just tweak mine every now and then. I know they self adjust, but I always found that manually tweaking them in my previous cars made a big difference.

No. there's a backing plate. You must remove the drum. And if your brakes aren't wearing out, you're not adjusted right. Adjustment should be checked every 6 months to a year.

Always adjust so they're JUST touching, or at most, 1 mm away.

I adjust the brakes by turning the adjuster until you can spin the drum with a slight amount of drag and then back off 1 click. The drums should spin freely without binding if you have any binding at all your drums may be out of round, get them turned.

On my brake job I had the drums and rotors turned. I have lots of experience manually adjusting drum brakes, my first Pontiac had four-wheel drum brakes! Manual adjusting made a major difference. I just wanted to know if the backing plate had an adjustment access hole or whether I'd be required to pull the drums. Now I know. Yes, I always adjusted until they *just* barely dragged, and that worked very well. But I've never manually adjusted my current Bonneville's drum brakes, and after seeing how little they've worn, I'm more inclined to do it now and enjoy the improved brake response.

Thanks for the replies!
-Mark

If your rear brake pads are adjusted correctly then most of your stopping power will be in the front with less to the rear. The rear brakes can be adjusted but they are also self adjusting. If you set them too tight, they will wear down to a good fit after you have overheated and almost burned up your brakes but will seem to be working better because they are applying earlier than they should. I have seen 2 fires from this. One on a big rig trailer and the other on a friend's flat track Monte Carlo racer. If you set them too loose, they will eventually self adjust to their proper location but will take too long to break in. If you have to adjust your rear brakes when you haven't changed out the pads, the system is broken (usually locked up from debris or corrosion) and needs to be fixed. Adjustment of the brakes is only done when the rear pads or other components are removed for replacement.

If you are ever wondering if your brakes are functioning properly, Empty your trunk of subs, batteries and amps, take the car to an ABANDONED road or EMPTY parking lot, take out your ABS fuse (this may give you a computer code or dummy light) and get it up to a moderate speed. Slowly but continually add more and more brake pressure. Your REAR wheels should lock up first. This is because during braking, the car's weight is shifted to the front of the car. The harder you brake, the more weight goes to the front. At this point, you have lost control of the rear of the car but you can still steer it. Now is not the time to turn the wheel much because your rear end will swing around and leave you sideways in the road. If you have lost steering instead, then you have a serious problem with the back brakes. Probably a broken self adjuster or worn out/missing pads. If you have a trunk that is loaded down with 200 lbs of subs, batteries and amps (like mine), then you have too much weight in the back and the front brakes may let loose first reguardless of condition and destroys the purpose of the test. A properly balanced car is important for extreme handling situations such as avoiding accidents. If you continue with the test and your rear brakes have locked up first then keep adding pressure and your front brakes should lock up soon after. Otherwise either your rear brakes are adjusted too tight or your front brakes aren't functioning properly. You should get a good solid 4 wheel lockup with no control of steering. Another thing to check for during this test is pull. The car should never pull to the left or right through the whole test.

Brakes are the most important part of a car. NEVER go more than 4 years between brake bleedings. If your brake fluid is brown, it has absorbed moisture and has to be flushed. It causes mushy brakes and brake fade. I still stand by my previous statement that my brakes are still doing fine with the original rear pads at over 265,000 miles. I check them every 2 years and bleed the system every 4. After bleeding I then go to a nearby empty parking lot where the cops like to wait for speeders, Say hello and tell them that I would like to check my brake system then perform the test. I only had a problem once and it was a leaking front caliper seal that I had accidentally punctured sometime during the brake job.

As for glazed pads, disks, shoes, and drums. Don't waste your money on replacing them. take fine grade steel wool and scrub your disks and drums till they loose the glossyness. This will give your disks and drums a similar surface as new/newly machined rotors and pads but not as harsh. DON'T to this to the pads and shoes. This will re-break-in your pads and shoes removing the glaze without the wasted expense of replacing them. I go over disks and rotors every time the pads and/or shoes are replaced on all my cars/trucks/bikes. Never get your disks or rotors turned unless the braking surface is rough and always get them turned in pairs. If the surface has ridges but is still smooth, it is no reason to have them turned. The ridges cause added surface contact after break-in and actually help. Some racers used to actually machine these smooth regular ridges into their rotors and shoes to increase contact surface because for most cars you couldn't get bigger brakes and this would improve stopping power. This practice died out when disk brakes became the norm.

Tell you a better way to test to see if your back brakes are working the way they should...

Go down an abandoned road backwards at about 30, and hit the brakes with good effort. Your fronts should BARELY slip.

I remember in my 89, the backs were horrible...I did that test, and the fronts locked up immediately and is what entirely stopped me. Attempted to make them work, and knowing what I know now, it would have been a lot easier than I anticipated at the time, but regardless, they never were fixed completely.

Then in the 93, when I got it, it had new brakes installed, all 4 corners, did the same test, and mind you, these are the same rear brakes 87-99, ABS didn't even activate, the backs grabbed SO hard it was insane. Drum brakes aren't weak at all, they're excellent assist to a full size car if adjusted correctly.