I adjusted out my rear shoes today. The difference in braking power and pedal feel was night and day. Before, my brakes were pretty scary, and now they feel like a real car. My E-brake also works, and it did not work before.

If you have an rx7 with drum brakes and have not adjusted your shoes lately, DO IT!

 

Changing and adjusting the shoes was enough to make me not want them anymore. Yes they work, but **** that, I'm putting a GSL rear end in my car.

 

Changing brake shoes is a bit of an art and can be frusturating the first few times. Adjusting the shoes on the other hand is pretty easy. Pull the drums off (usually a couple hits with a hammer (DON'T hit the studs)) and turn the starwheel adjuster in the way needed to tighten the shoes against the drum surface.

Properly adjusted brakes will make a big difference.

 

My drums work excellent, but there's a bad bearing somewhere in my rear end, AND I just bought a GSL parts car, so disks are imminent. I just have a deep hatred of drum brakes, too complicated and ugly for me.

 

I changed the shoes once in my FB and it will be the last. I have a GSL rear end also that is going to go into my FB and I'm not sure if I will own my SA long enough to change the shoes in it

 

I must say that properly working drum brakes dont need to be adjusted, they do it themselves

 

SA drum brakes don't self adjust.

 

drum brakes are supposed to self adjust when going in reverse and you apply the e-brake

That is the theory.

I will never get another car that has drums. Pro mechanics know a trick to make replacing drums quick and easy.

 

I'm fairly certain that, since SA brakes don't have star adjusters, they do not self adjust. There are individual adjusters for each shoe, and they adjust via a lock nut type adjuster.

 

SA brakes are mighty easy to change out in the rears.

 

my 83 has star adjusters, and they don't self adjust. So therefore in theory a SA brakes should self adjust. Logical thinking is wonderful, drum brakes are such a hassle to change.

How do pro mechanics get all those parts back together in a profittable time period? There must be some special tool.

 

Just to say it one more time, SA brakes do not self adjust. You have to turn the adjuster on the bottom back of the brake backing plate to adjust them. You need to check this on a regular basis or when you feel the pedal has gone away some.

BTW this is a good candidate for the archives. A lot of SA owners don't realize this when they first get the cars.

 

replace your drum brake system a few times and then you will understand. the first 3 or 4 times its rough and takes a bit but after that it goes faster than greased lightning.

i agree though for ease of repair i would like to upgreade to disk in the rear.

 

maybe i should have put SA in the title.

 

there is no special tool its just a matter how many times you have replaced them on how fast you can do it. i used to work at just brakes in phx and the master tech can rip and replace the drum brakes on any vehicle in 5 mins. both sides mind u.

 

So who is going to step up here and give us a tutorial on HOW to adjust??

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

I need to do mine sometime soon, maybe I can get one up on here. SA specific of course.

 

There's a writeup on installing shoes somewhere on here already, but here's how you adjust them if you have an SA with drum brakes that do not self adjust.

1. Ensure that the E-brake is off and the front wheels are chocked, and jack up the rear end of the car

2. Remove both rear wheels

2a. It would be a good idea to pull off your drums now and check on the shoes and drum material. If it looks alright and they aren't screaming at ya, you probably can get away with adjusting them for the time being (until you can find that disc brake rear end, haha)

3. Behind the drum assembly there are two large (19mm I think) nuts with bolts sticking out.

4. Loosen the 19mm? lock nut with an open ended wrench. The adjuster is now unlocked and you can adjust the shoes outward so that they are closer to the drum.

5. Grab the end of the adjuster (not the lock nut) with some pliers or vicegrips, and adjust out* the shoe until you can just feel it dragging on the drum. If you adjust it out too much then you won't be able to turn the drum by hand, so just play with it a little until there is a slight amount of resistance.

6. While holding the adjuster exactly where you want it with the pliers, tighten the lock nut with the open ended wrench so that the adjuster won't back out on its own.

7. Enjoy your now working parking brake and your improved pedal feel.

*I'm not sure which way adjusts it out, but I'm pretty sure it is different for the front and rear shoe. Just play with it and you'll be able to tell fairly easily.

 

The locknut is 17mm. The bolt is 8mm. Someone had visegripped one on the rear of my SA. I would kick his *** if I ever knew who did that. If you have a Haynes Manual, there is an adjustment procedure in there. I would like to thank maireeka for reminding some of us old guys to check these things from time to time. I adjusted mine on the SA today, and all I can say is "Wow" what a differance. I haven't had that good brakes on the SA since I put her back on the raod.

 

old shop teacher told us as a rule of thumb, wheel should complete 1/2 a revolution when you spin it by hand. So give it a spin with moderate pressure, let go, 1/2 rev from that point.

 

Ok, let me get this straight. I have an 82 with rear drums. If I pull the Emergency Brake up to where I feel slight resistance and roll backward, it will auto adjust the drums for me? Or am I missing something? I have replaced the rear drums in my Protege before, but not the RX.

Can someone correct this for me?

 

taking notes....!
Thanks guys!
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

sorry about the vicegrip advice. my adjusters have obviously already been butchered by vice grips, since I couldn't get a wrench to fit on them. They were just deformed squares so I used pliers instead of a proper wrench.

 

No, bad information there. The 83 drums are not self adjusting. Just because they have star wheel doesn't mean they self adjust. Look in the FSM, it details how to adjust, its not hard to do.

 

if 83 drums are not suppose to self adjust, then why have that star, different left and right spanner threads, the L shaped thing between where the e brake cable attaches and the star that is supposed to rachet the star tighter on the spanner when the car rolls backwards and you apply the emergency hand brake?