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I like to work on my car myself, and I am very good at changing disc brakes. But I have never had a car that has drum brakes. However, as you all know, the Bonneville does. I was looking at some videos on Youtube for guidance, but drum brake replacement looks like a headache.. and one that I don't want from brakes. So before I actually decide to pay someone to do it, just to avoid the headache. Am I over reacting to what I just seen? Normal brake replacement for the fronts take me around 15 minutes... if that. So Im pretty good. I just want to hear if its bad or not and what timing I can expect for my first time.

Depends on how rusty everything is....

When I had drums I usually planned on everything needing replacement. Wheel cylinder, adjusters, shoes, drum. The whole thing. Only once did I have to return any parts.

I would take it somewhere. I can do a lot of things myself, but I know my limits and I stick to them mostly. If you have a spare car and some time, go for it, it'll help you learn. Otherwise drums can be a pain sometimes.

Agreed with Randy too. Just plan on everything. Drum brakes last a while generally, so if you do it all at once you won't have to worry about a wheel cylinder leaking or something random down the line.

For me they are the back of my hand. Super easy but as said we all have our limits

In the world of drum brakes, I always found these to be really easy. Depends on your own comfort zone.

Here is a vid on a lesabre, which will be the same: http://youtu.be/8pKrRfzPvlc

these are very easy drum setups to work with, not like others that have springs going everywhere.

if you still want to take it in after the vid, by all means.

On the '53 Ford F100 my family owns, maintaining the drum brakes is a huge pain, especially since we cant find the tool that we bought that makes it a breeze!
If my dad hadnt shown me how to do it, I would have never wanted to touch drum brakes, and I still heavily prefer disc brakes, just because they are so much easier to work on.

Good luck with the brakes, though! Hope they arent too rusty down there

Drums aren't that hard...

RJolly87 wrote:Here is a vid on a lesabre, which will be the same: http://youtu.be/8pKrRfzPvlc

these are very easy drum setups to work with, not like others that have springs going everywhere.

if you still want to take it in after the vid, by all means.

Thanks for the video. Better for my car than the one I found.

00Beast wrote:Drums aren't that hard...

They don't seem like they are. Just seems like it can be irritating dealing with the springs during the first time. But I trust myself to do it more rather than a shop, so I may take a shot at it.

Yeah, they're definitely not THAT hard. It's simple, just take a picture before you start, so you know how to put it back together.

I agree, get EVERYTHING. They're guaranteed to be rusty.

Give the nuts on the z-shaped little hard line between the hoses and the cylinders a good shot on penetrating oil as soon as you can access them. They can be difficult to remove from the cylinder, and are very difficult to remake if you round the nut off.

Make sure to have the proper sized fitting wrench (2 more flats on it than a standard wrench) to remove the fittings, or you're almost guaranteed to round them off...

I have found, from working on rusty junk at the dealership, that a properly placed and tightened vice grip on the fittings and bleeders will break things loose far better than a wrench can. You know that the wrench is going to round off the hex when applying too much force. The vice grip won't slip as easily.

If it were me doing it, depending on how rusty things looked, I'd leave the wheel cylinder alone and just do the shoes, not unless you are ready to make new brake lines too. It's happened, just sayin'.

Leon

Id prefer old school drums as opposed to hat style rear discs where the ebrake shoes are in the rotors. Those are horrible in our climate. Another design uses the caliper as the park brake, but those seem to wear the pads faster, stick easily, and caliper replacement is horrible expensive .

When you get the drums off, make sure you machine the drums or replace them or they will be a pain to get back on and adjust due to the rust ridge inside the drum.