bought some drum brakes from Rock Auto a year ago and finally put them on. They thump thump when braking so I tried to get them turned. The O'reilly drum brake turning expert said they are already out of spec. So he wouldn't turn them.

So who is full of s ? O'reilly's or Rock Auto?

 

all of the above!

 

Bring it to a real machine shop, .0001% of orielly employees actually know what they are talking about

 

You'd be lucky to find one of those guys to read a dial caliper. Could you have a bad bearing or one that was not adjusted properly?

 

It isn't the bearing b/c the thump thump braking happened after I put the new drums on, doesn't happen with the old drums on. The new drums are blue in spots. And I know what a bad wheel bearing sounds like. Wheel bearings are a real pain to replace.

Helpful suggestion though.

ps...on the national nightly news, they said that it costs $600-$1200 to professionally replace the disc brake pads on a 5 y o toyota sienna van. Can you believe that ****!?

 

if the drums are blue, they probably are bad. cheap chinese parts are cheap for a reason! sometimes they are made from random stuff they found laying on the ground, sometimes they are just made badly.

i don't know about a toyota, but the battery in my dads 5 series BMW was over $700

 

Centric brand drums?

Before I converted to disk, I had the same issue with a new set.
They were so cheap I would've lost money sending them back.

 

yes, they are CENTRIC brake drums. The blue spots are from where they came in contact with the brake shoes? The reason I replaced my old drums is that they were so worn that I had to put washers on the spanner/adjuster.

I left the new centric drums with an auto garage receptionist. She didn't ask any questions.

 

I will never install drums on any vehicle without machining the first, ever since I forced myself to turn every drum before install due to a problematic vehicle i encountered years ago, I have come across 0 drums that were actually true and round... and this is over a 7+ year span and hundreds , if not in the thousands of drums installed. A properly trued drum will still spin like butter with no stiff spots, even if over adjusted

 

Now the 2nd place that I took the brake drums to said that the drums are centered off the stud holes! And they cannot turn them because they don't have the fixture.

So I dropped the damn brake drums off at "Budget Brakes" (sounds like a real winner).

 

I've heard that the storage of drums affects them more than anything (cheap metal doesn't help either). Idealy they would be stored climate controlled and not stacked at all. But they often get tossed about in shipping and stacked unevenly in storage. The only way to install a drum is to turn it prior to use.

 

Before this thread I didn't know of turning drums prior to install.

The first brake job I did on my 7 I spent a lot more on some Brembo drums, they went on right out of the box with no bad vibes.

 

OK, I finally found a place that would turn them. Now I cannot get one of the old drums off. It turns freely, so it isn't the brake shoes holding them. I am soaking things in pb blaster now.

For fun I asked all the brake specialists expert professionals, "what would happen if I ignored the pulsating rear drum brakes?
1>the springs would wear out
2>the brake shoes would crack
3>mess up the rear drums (ya, but the drums are already messed up)
4>nothing, eventually the drums would correct themselves.

And one guy said that the drums were defective. And I should ship them back to Rock Auto. Shipping is $18, the price of one brake drum.

Brembo drums? Search didn't find anything for an rx-7.

So I must really look like an artsy fartsy ****** dumbass to these guys.

 

I searched last night brembo drums are on carid.com

 

i'm not sure the drums have this, but the discs have a threaded hole on the face, and you can just put a bolt in there, and it'll pop it off the hub/axle.

actually i'm pretty sure the drums have this, as i've got a set of bolts for this, its an 8x1.25 bolt, like the intake manifold, front cover, water pump, thermostat housing, etc

 

Finished. The combination of pb blaster and warmer temperature (35 f at night verses 65 in the afternoon) got the drum off. I put a little high temperature grease where the drum and axle hub touch.

Brembo brakes =$104 Centric=$36 +$30.....so how can I treat myself with $38 ???

Threaded hole? Never seen it.