What we’re looking to do is ease off the adjuster to move the shoes away from the drum to make it easier to get the drum off. You need to lever the wheel downwards. Keep levering til you feel like you’ve had enough and then try pulling the drum off. If it feels like it’s grabbing maybe lever some more.
Now, this step comes with a warning. If you go too hard with these, and you haven’t eased off that adjuster, you could damage some stuff. Remember those M8 bolts? Well I hope M8 fits. Pretty sure they’re M8 but it’s dark and raining out and I don’t want to go and check. Anyway, there are two threaded holes in the outer face of the drums. Here’s a picture I stole from someone on the L200 forum in the UK which shows how you can use them:
The drums will only really be tough to drag off if they’re binding with the shoes – or, as occurred with mine, the hold down springs have come off and the shoes are coming off with the drums (which is not good).
Aside from the adjuster being loosened your other option is to deploy the mallet. A hammer could theoretically deform your drums (but you’d have to be a bit of a butcher) so we’ll stick with the mallet. Basically we’re tapping the drums to shake them free of the shoes if they’re binding.
So, you’re pulling off the drums, tapping etc and eventually they’ll come free. If you haven’t already, stop and crack open a beer while you ponder the next step. Now would be a good time to inspect the drums. The measurements are already up there ^^^. Check the inner face for scoring or other signs of damage. You want a nice smooth even surface. If your surface is not smooth see if you can work out why - something may have shaken loose and fallen in but chances are whatever it was has been ground up and spat out. Put them aside for later.
Removing the brake shoes from the vehicleAt the bottom of the assembly is a small spring and the handbrake cable.
The handbrake cable has that silver spring on it and goes into the silver lever to the left. If you grab the end of the cable and pull it left so as to compress the spring, you’ll then be able to push it upwards and out of that lever/bracket. It should then hang free. Then using pliers (or a screwdriver can also work) remove the small spring from the bottom of the shoes.
Now you need to remove the two hold down springs which show up in the top corners of the above image. Basically you need to compress the spring inwards, and rotate the T shaped head on the pin so that it falls through the elongated slot on the spring/clip.
Pull the hold down pins out from behind the backing plate and set aside – check that the pins have a good T shape about them (I had two that looked like arrow heads and they were pretty ineffective). Note that Bendix shoes are sometimes supplied with replacement hold down spring clips. If your shoes didn’t come with replacement spring clips make sure you don’t damage the ones on there.
At this point the rest of the brake assembly will basically come off in one big piece. If you pull the lower ends of both shoes outwards they will basically hinge around the wheel cylinders and you’ll be able to slide the point of the shoes off the pistons of the wheel cylinders in an upwards direction.
Try not to pop the pistons out of the wheel cylinders and don’t play with them too much. Fiddling with them will introduce air to your brake lines and we don’t want that. Also, you need to always be scrupulously clean with wheel cylinders – you don’t want to introduce grit as that will cause wear and tear that we don’t want. I’ll put some more stuff about wheel cylinders towards the end.
Place the assembled stuff on a flat work surface. Consider another beer. Now is a good time to consider cleaning off your backing plate. There will be brake dust and grime and maybe some grease. I used workshop wipes and got it back to looking factory clean. This might not be necessary but we’re going to add some grease later and I figured dust might contribute to my squealing brakes so the less dust the better. When you clean the backing plate off you might find some small wear marks where the shoes have been rubbing – these will coincide with where we will apply grease later.
Dismantling the assembled shoes and springs etcNow, compare the removed brakes to the brake shoes in your box. They are not identical for both sides so you’ll need to pick the right shoes for the side you’re working on.
There are two pins that come through the shoes. On the ones I bought one pin was already in place and the other had to be knocked out of the old shoes and pushed into the new ones from behind. In the image below you’ll see one pin under the horseshoe clip on the left (the handbrake lever pivots on this) and one on the right through the silver lever that goes up to the slack adjuster (click for full image).
So work out which pin you have and which you need and remember that you’ll have to tap one out and tap it back in again once you’ve stripped everything. While it's all still together have a look at the placement of the ends of the adjuster rod. They have notches in them for the handbrake lever and the adjuster lever and it helps to remember which way round they go when it comes time to re-assemble. There are steps in the U shape at either end, and it is logical once you think about it but I made the mistake of not looking before I pulled them off and that meant I had to think about it more than I wanted to.
My approach here was to remove it piece by piece, clean the pieces as I went, and lay them out in a way that I could remember. You will have the benefit of some photos here, but also you’ve got the other side’s assembly still sitting together if you really get confused and need to consult further.
Let’s start with the horseshoe. It’s not hard to get off but since Mitsubishi has been kind enough to provide guidance, here it is:
I’ve found if you put a flat blade across the open part of the horseshoe and push you can then grab the U shaped bit with pliers or a hook and pull it off. Or you can try the twisting screwdriver as indicated in the Mitsubishi diagram. Trial and error, steady as she goes and all that.
There’s a washer underneath which is curved. That applies upwards tension on the horseshoe. Try not to lose or damage the washer – this is the wave washer and it is not hard to damage.
Once the horseshoe clip is off, and the wave washer off, the lever should lift free. You may need to pull the shoes apart to stretch the spring a little to free it. You can leave it there til later if that suits but it does theoretically prevent access to one end of the big spring.
Now on the other side, where the silver adjuster lever is sitting, there is a tiny circlip aka snap ring (item 3 in the exploded diagram) retaining the lever on the silver pin. Again, this item is delicate and we want to re-use it unless you’ve bought new ones, so be careful. I offer no tips as I can’t remember how I got it off. Maybe Geek did that one. I’d go with the screwdriver and needle nosed pliers.
Once that circlip/snap ring comes off there is a long thin spring holding that lever down which runs through a hole in the shoe. Remove that with the lever and set aside.
Now it’s time to remove the big spring. As with anything there’s an easy way and an easier way. The less easy way is to grab the spring with multigrips, force it outwards and pop it out of the hole on the brake shoe. The easier way (I reckon anyway) is that if you pull the shoes apart a little, the end bit of the adjuster (the short bit to the right of the toothed adjuster wheel) can pop off the adjuster and be pulled free. Once that’s out of the way the tension is gone from the spring and it’s easy to take it off. I figure it's easier to grab hold of the brake shoes than it is to hold the little spring with multigrips and apply the same sort of force especially if you’re doing it on your own.
Re-assemblyAt this point you should have all your pieces apart, hopefully undamaged. Find that pin I was talking about earlier and tap it out gently with a hammer and punch. If you have a small enough hammer and a good eye you might get by without the punch. Bring it to the new shoes and tap it back in from behind.
At this stage you should have washed your hands. We don’t want the new shoes getting dirty, oily, greasy etc. Another tip I found on the net somewhere was to run some strips of low tack masking tape over the wearing surface of the new shoes. That way you can work away on them and they’ll stay clean until you pull the tape off at the end.
I’ll mention grease points again below, but it’s relevant here too. Unwind your adjuster all the way out and check that your threads are nice and clean. The threads are meant to be greased so if yours are looking dry now is the time. You should also grease the inside of the cup/end piece that sits on the end of the adjuster but I’d leave that until you’re about to put it back together – after the other clips and springs anyway.
Here’s a tiny diagram of what I mean in terms of grease points on the adjuster, not that you really need it but since I have it, why not?
Now, start with the handbrake lever. Theoretically the pin on which it sits could use a tiny bit of grease but for how often you’d use it I didn’t bother. Also I didn’t think of it when I was doing it
. The horseshoe clip is mildly fiddly but only because of the tension brought in by the wave washer. Now remember the curve on the wave washer faces so the inside of the curve is down towards the shoe and the outside of the curve is up towards the horseshoe.
Here’s some pics (I didn’t need to squeeze mine in with pliers as indicated here – I guess it depends how tight a fit you achieve and whether you spread it a lot when removing it):