What did you do today for your bug out vehicle?

[NT2C]

Made an appointment for scheduled service at the dealer.  Time to drain and refill both diffs and the transfer case.

[EBuff75]

Finally replaced the broken rear wiper arm on my Suburban. 

I broke it a few weeks ago when I accidentally bumped the rear hatch button on the remote while it was in the garage.  Then, when I opened the garage door, the hinges caught on the arm and broke it (when the garage door is open, the hatch opens up until it stops against the door, with the arm being the highest point).  I bought the new arm ($17 on Amazon for the entire assembly) a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't get it off of the splined stud.  So I bought a Gearwrench puller kit, only to find that the claws are too big to fit onto the nut.  Okay fine, it's a good tool to have around for future work anyway, so I'll keep it, but I still need something to pull the arm.  Enter the $6, no-name wiper arm puller on Amazon.

The big drawback is that it uses a manual knob and doesn't have a way to put a wrench on it, so you'd better have some really good grip strength!  I cranked on it as hard as I could (and yes, I'd already soaked it with penetrating oil several times) and it still didn't move.  So I smacked it with my hand a few times while it was under tension.  BANG!!!  It came off the splines all at once and sounded like I'd just fired a gun in the garage!  Percussive maintenance FTW! 

The new arm is on, but there was no way that I was going to try to beat it down onto the splines all the way like the old one was (the splines are tapered and it was hammered all the way down on them).  And since the old wiper blade was still fine, I put that one back on and saved the new one that came with the arm for later. 

That was a lot of effort for a seemingly minor repair.  And I can't even blame Michigan road salt for this one, as the truck lived in Texas until it came up here last year!

[NT2C]

Two days ago now but, I had the front and rear diffs, as well as the transfer case, drained, inspected, and refilled.  $400 just in fluids! Also had the OEM plastic sump shield replaced with this steel one from 6 Monkeys:

https://6monkeys.net/shop/ols/products/sump-plate-no-access-panel

[majorhavoc]

Two days ago now but, I had the front and rear diffs, as well as the transfer case, drained, inspected, and refilled.  $400 just in fluids! Also had the OEM plastic sump shield replaced with this steel one from 6 Monkeys:

https://6monkeys.net/shop/ols/products/sump-plate-no-access-panel

I love that guy's website, especially his admission that he can occassionally be scatter-brained so to please pester him or even call him on his personal cell (number provided).  I inherently trust a business like that far more than one with a smooth, slickly produced website.

[NT2C]

Two days ago now but, I had the front and rear diffs, as well as the transfer case, drained, inspected, and refilled.  $400 just in fluids! Also had the OEM plastic sump shield replaced with this steel one from 6 Monkeys:

https://6monkeys.net/shop/ols/products/sump-plate-no-access-panel

I love that guy's website, especially his admission that he can occassionally be scatter-brained so to please pester him or even call him on his personal cell (number provided).  I inherently trust a business like that far more than one with a smooth, slickly produced website.

Plus, they provide jobs for monkeys.  Helps keep them from going bad.  Gotta applaud a business that takes care of our simian cousins.

[MacWa77ace]

Did a rear drum brake job on the 04 Corolla.

Have I told you guys that I hate drum brakes and curse the name of the inventor?
Overcomplicated, underperforming, brake fading POS's.


Anyhow, like all drums these were stuck/seized onto the hub. So I had to get a something to pull the drums off. People say use two M8x1.25 bolts in the drum removal holes. Meh, probably works if you have an impact wrench and are lucky enough not to strip the threads in those holes. I don't have an impact wrench or that kind of luck so I was looking for an alternative.

Then there's the 'heavy duty' or plain old drum/rotor pullers [the only difference i see is the marketing nomenclature. ex: extra strength] that range in price from $97 on ali express, to over $130 for brand name stuff.
 

So I went with the $18 bolt type wheel puller set at Harbor Freight. that along with my 24" breaker bar and had the drums off in about 5 minutes each. [in combination with penetrating oil and a dead blow hammer]


This made pulling the drums a piece of cake.

Did I mention that I hate drum brakes and that this took me twice as long to change the pads and drums as doing a pad and rotor job on disc brakes? And twice as much brake cleaner. Used a whole can on just the two rears.

Managed to pop the one of the pistons out of both the left and right brake, and put the wrong spring on the wrong place once when reassembling. Oh, and these auto adjusting marvels of genius engineering totally wore out unevenly. The tops of the pads where the pistons are were totally worn off, the front side pad L/R were worn complete down, and the rear side pads had about 3mm of pad left [excluding the top]. Totally uneven wear pattern.

It'd been over 250K miles since the last drum brake job so hopefully I never have to do another one in my lifetime.

[NT2C]

The tops of the pads where the pistons are were totally worn off, the front side pad L/R were worn complete down, and the rear side pads had about 3mm of pad left [excluding the top]. Totally uneven wear pattern.

It'd been over 250K miles since the last drum brake job so hopefully I never have to do another one in my lifetime.

So, pretty normal wear for that mileage.  Front shoes will generally do most of the braking which is why those shoes have longer pad areas.

Rust bonding of the drum to the axle is usually only an issue in the Rust Belt, but with such extended brake servicing my suggestion would be to use a wire wheel and carefully clean both surfaces before reassembly and to pull the drums off on every other tire rotation to give the rust less time to build up.  Oh, and heating and rapidly cooling the hub (torch followed by a water hose) can do wonders for breaking a rust bond.

I've done so many drum brake jobs over the years that I can still do one while half asleep. Did both rears on the pickup we sent to @12_Gauge_Chimp about 6 months prior to the shipment.  Having the right tools, and knowing how to use them, turns it into a 10-minute job per wheel.  My shop teacher back in the summer course of auto repair in high school used to time us on brake service jobs.

[MacWa77ace]

I've done so many drum brake jobs over the years that I can still do one while half asleep. Did both rears on the pickup we sent to 12_Gauge_Chimp about 6 months prior to the shipment.  Having the right tools, and knowing how to use them, turns it into a 10-minute job per wheel.  My shop teacher back in the summer course of auto repair in high school used to time us on brake service jobs.

Wow, ten minutes /wheel, takes me 10 minutes just to jack up the car and put the jackstands under. 5 min /wheel to take the lugs off and the wheel off, only have a lug wrench. Then another five per wheel to put the wheel puller on each drum. about 1-2 minutes per drum to pull each of the drums after that. Another 5 to spray everything off with break cleaner. I'm already at ~35. Had to loosen the auto adjuster which was all the way out of course, and that took at good 5-10 minutes /wheel using two flat heads. why?  lost one of the auto adjusters' ratchet lever for about 5 minutes, it was under my stool, I knew it couldn't have gone far cause I hadn't moved anywhere.  There's usually a minimum of 10 minutes of 'where's that part/tool' in all my projects, or the dropped bolt where you can't get at it.

Yeah this was my first drum brake job ever. And the first wheel took twice as long as the second but still embarrassingly long. I've changed radiators faster including draining and filling. I never did it before though, how long did it take you on your first try? What tool do you use to pull/put the springs on/off? I used a diagonal and a needle nose. They weren't working great but the hardest part was aligning the pads in the pistons and the bottom catch when reinstalling and having them 'stay' while putting on the springs and auto adj ratchet. That's what took the most time and when I popped those pistons out.  So that was extra time on that.

I thought the hard part was going to be unseizing the drum and that was the part I was worried about. But with that wheel puller that was the easiest part. Which then made what I thought was the easy part the frustratingly hard part, pulling the pads and springs, actually that was easy too, putting them back was hard. 

These were probably seized when I got the car at 97K, so I didn't pull every rotation or new tire set. It's normal for them not to wear evenly? These were completely worn out from 11 - 1 o'clock. And paper thin from 1 - 7 o'clock. and then had about 3mm tapering into nuthing from 7 to 11 oclock. The drums were actually pretty good, not grooved at all.

I knew about the front brakes doing most of the stopping from my SuperBike days, the fronts on those were a giant double disk set and the rear was this tiny 'why is it even there' disk. And from experience I only used the rear brake on my motorcycle for the last few feet of a stop light/sign stop, or to keep from rolling on a hill while stopped. Any real braking was done with the front only.

I did wire brush the hubs before putting them back on. I will pull them each tire rotation and new tire set from now on for sure. But if I get another 250K out of these new brakes, that would put this car at 617K and I'm pretty sure it won't make it that far.

[eugenenine]

Did a rear drum brake job on the 04 Corolla.

Wife;s friend bought a used corolla and I was asked to change the rear struts. They had a bracket welded to the strut and the rear brake hose goes through the bracket so you have to disconnect the rear brakes to change the struts. They could have just had a clamp around the strut or a bracket that bolted to it but no they had to make it more work. I see people complain about GM saving a penny per car but Toyota is just as bad.
And this car reinforced why I'll never buy a front wheel drive unibody. The rear jack point was right in front of where the rear suspension arm bolts to the body. When I started to jack the car the body started bending. I had to put a 2x4 under the side to jack it up so I wouldn't destroy it. Suspension bolted to thin sheet metal is a really poor design, just a little bit of rust there and the whole thing is compromised.

[MacWa77ace]

Did a rear drum brake job on the 04 Corolla.

Wife;s friend bought a used corolla and I was asked to change the rear struts. They had a bracket welded to the strut and the rear brake hose goes through the bracket so you have to disconnect the rear brakes to change the struts. They could have just had a clamp around the strut or a bracket that bolted to it but no they had to make it more work. I see people complain about GM saving a penny per car but Toyota is just as bad.
And this car reinforced why I'll never buy a front wheel drive unibody. The rear jack point was right in front of where the rear suspension arm bolts to the body. When I started to jack the car the body started bending. I had to put a 2x4 under the side to jack it up so I wouldn't destroy it. Suspension bolted to thin sheet metal is a really poor design, just a little bit of rust there and the whole thing is compromised.

Next time I get in there on the rears I'ma check the locations of the lines. I don't recall them going thru the braket on my 04 and I was contemplating that as a lift point, because as you said, the lift point is really in a dumb spot for a non factory supplied jack. But if you use the jack that came with the car it goes on the edge with the slot and its farther away from the strut. But who wants to take 15 minutes to use that crappy factory supplied screw type jack.

You can see here I have my jackstand under that strut. Those look like the brake lines going on top there too. Was her's a disc brake system?

The jack had to go right next to that jackstand, but then i got it out of there once the jackstand was in place.

I don't use these points because I don't use the factory jack. But I might put a jackstand there.


Have I told you how much I hate BMW's and working on BMW's?

[NT2C]

I've done so many drum brake jobs over the years that I can still do one while half asleep. Did both rears on the pickup we sent to 12_Gauge_Chimp about 6 months prior to the shipment.  Having the right tools, and knowing how to use them, turns it into a 10-minute job per wheel.  My shop teacher back in the summer course of auto repair in high school used to time us on brake service jobs.

Wow, ten minutes /wheel, takes me 10 minutes just to jack up the car and put the jackstands under. 5 min /wheel to take the lugs off and the wheel off, only have a lug wrench. Then another five per wheel to put the wheel puller on each drum. about 1-2 minutes per drum to pull each of the drums after that. Another 5 to spray everything off with break cleaner. I'm already at ~35. Had to loosen the auto adjuster which was all the way out of course, and that took at good 5-10 minutes /wheel using two flat heads. why?  lost one of the auto adjusters' ratchet lever for about 5 minutes, it was under my stool, I knew it couldn't have gone far cause I hadn't moved anywhere.  There's usually a minimum of 10 minutes of 'where's that part/tool' in all my projects, or the dropped bolt where you can't get at it.

Yeah this was my first drum brake job ever. And the first wheel took twice as long as the second but still embarrassingly long. I've changed radiators faster including draining and filling. I never did it before though, how long did it take you on your first try? What tool do you use to pull/put the springs on/off? I used a diagonal and a needle nose. They weren't working great but the hardest part was aligning the pads in the pistons and the bottom catch when reinstalling and having them 'stay' while putting on the springs and auto adj ratchet. That's what took the most time and when I popped those pistons out.  So that was extra time on that.

I thought the hard part was going to be unseizing the drum and that was the part I was worried about. But with that wheel puller that was the easiest part. Which then made what I thought was the easy part the frustratingly hard part, pulling the pads and springs, actually that was easy too, putting them back was hard. 

These were probably seized when I got the car at 97K, so I didn't pull every rotation or new tire set. It's normal for them not to wear evenly? These were completely worn out from 11 - 1 o'clock. And paper thin from 1 - 7 o'clock. and then had about 3mm tapering into nuthing from 7 to 11 oclock. The drums were actually pretty good, not grooved at all.

I knew about the front brakes doing most of the stopping from my SuperBike days, the fronts on those were a giant double disk set and the rear was this tiny 'why is it even there' disk. And from experience I only used the rear brake on my motorcycle for the last few feet of a stop light/sign stop, or to keep from rolling on a hill while stopped. Any real braking was done with the front only.

I did wire brush the hubs before putting them back on. I will pull them each tire rotation and new tire set from now on for sure. But if I get another 250K out of these new brakes, that would put this car at 617K and I'm pretty sure it won't make it that far.

It was school, and safety of the kids was sorta important so the timed test didn't start until the vehicle was on the lift and the wheels were off.  All tools needed for the job were already on your cart, with the new shoes and hardware.  (we worked on our own cars or cars the teachers brought in for us to work on with the owner supplying the parts)

What I said about the front doing most of the braking, while true for front axle vs rear, is also true with drum brake shoes.  The shoe with the larger pad area goes ahead of the axle spindle and is the one that does about 80% of the braking on that wheel.

When I do drum brakes these days I just get a complete hardware kit and replace everything, even the wheel cylinders if there's even the slightest hint of a leak from them, and I always replace in pairs per axle.  (ie: if the left side gets a cylinder, so does the right) That keeps the braking even and you don't end up doing the job again in 6 months because the other side needs it now.

While you can do drums with a pair of pliers and a flat blade screwdriver, having a proper pair of brake pliers, spoon, and spring washer tool makes the job much faster, safer and easier.

[MacWa77ace]

I didn't notice a difference in pad area, but you could only put them on one way as they had the pegs for the parking brake pre installed.

While you can do drums with a pair of pliers and a flat blade screwdriver, having a proper pair of brake pliers, spoon, and spring washer tool makes the job much faster, safer and easier.

I hope I never have to do it again but that spring pliers looks like it might be fun. I also should have gotten one of those tools for the spring washer and pins that hold them in place. I didn't know I'd have to put them on and off 10 times during reinstalling.

Tell you the truth I was going to get this kit too when I was at harbor freight getting the wheel puller kit, but then got all involved in the Apache hardcase sale and forgot it. 

[NT2C]

I didn't notice a difference in pad area, but you could only put them on one way as they had the pegs for the parking brake pre installed.

While you can do drums with a pair of pliers and a flat blade screwdriver, having a proper pair of brake pliers, spoon, and spring washer tool makes the job much faster, safer and easier.

I hope I never have to do it again but that spring pliers looks like it might be fun. I also should have gotten one of those tools for the spring washer and pins that hold them in place. I didn't know I'd have to put them on and off 10 times during reinstalling.

Tell you the truth I was going to get this kit too when I was at harbor freight getting the wheel puller kit, but then got all involved in the Apache hardcase sale and forgot it. 

I'll just say that you'll want to replace that spring washer tool with two individual tools with plastic handles...or good leather gloves as you'll be pushing hard against the end of it and those things can cut you.  Oh, and the "pins" are called "brake nails".

[MacWa77ace]

I'll just say that you'll want to replace that spring washer tool with two individual tools with plastic handles...or good leather gloves as you'll be pushing hard against the end of it and those things can cut you.  Oh, and the "pins" are called "brake nails".

LOL, so I was putting those spring washers on and off and on and off with my bare hands mostly [no tools no  gloves, just two thumbs], So I think I could manage that two sided spring tool. 
But if I buy a kit I will keep that in mind. You don't think those pistons popping out will cause a leak do you? the o rings seemed fine and there were no leaks before they popped out and didn't see any after i put them back in. I'm going to inspect next weekend. I'm going back in to do a brake fluid change and should be easy to pull the drum off for a quick look. And also check the fluid level. Not sure how that works those drum cylinder pistons.

I saw a video a long time ago where this guy was doing drum breaks and when he got the drum off, the cylinder was wet on one side, so he replaced the whole cylinder unit. After I saw what's inside the cylinder, why wouldn't you just replace the O rings, seems easier than replacing the whole thing, seeing how easy they come apart.

I can't wear those ChrisFix rubber/neoprene gloves for more than a few minutes before they fill up with sweat. And regular gloves that won't rip, I can't feel thru, and ones I can feel thru usually rip really fast and are not disposable. So mostly no gloves for me.



My fingernails look like I'm a hobo today. Think of my hands like longshanks thinks of the irish.

[NT2C]

At any sign of leakage from wheel cylinders, you're supposed to hone the cylinders before reassembling them with a rebuild kit.  Most mechanics just replace the whole thing because it's cheap and easy.

If you were removing and reinstalling spring washers with just your fingers, there's a good chance those springs would have weakened over time and need replacement, and brake nails shouldn't ever be reused because they wear out.

[MacWa77ace]

@NT2C ok, thats why he replaced the whole cylinder.

I put all new springs and washers and pins too. It was a kit. So yeah those washer springs were about 1/4 inch less compressed than the old ones and hard to get on, but i have strong hands and nice white teeth.  

[Rednex]

My Truck has drum rear brakes. While i was redoing all the brake lines behind the cab i rebuilt the rear brakes while I was there, including new cylinders. Couldn't get the brake line off to run new line, they were rusted away so bad. I been working on trucks and cars from the early 70's since i was like 7, dad worked i helped and learned.

If ya weren't a 12 hour drive away i would say come on over, i used to have work on your car parties long ago. I got tools, air compressor , impact guns,air ratchets, only things i'm missing is a few items from engine building , and a frame lift.

[MacWa77ace]

@Rednex sounds fun, I learned a bit about cars and carpentry from dad and pluming and irrigation from uncle too. Electrical from 4 years of electronics class in HS, self taught small engines, motorcycles, and auto paint and body. Just to save money.

[NT2C]

Put this on.

You cannot view this attachment.

[wolf_from_wv]

Front CV axles.  The CV axle slide hammer tool seemed to make the replacement much easier.