Couldn’t agree more. I installed two new wheel cylinders along w/new front shoes recently. Rear wheel work so far has been mostly a safety inspection & replacing one spring. Rear shoes have some usage left, but won’t be long before I’ll be installing new shoes and wheel cylinders for the rear too. I believe it’s possible to purchase WC rebuild kits from NAPA, but the new WC price is pretty reasonable, $8-$15. In the truck’s early years I used nothing else than the WC rebuild method, easy peasy. The advantage of the rebuild method is you don’t have to remove the old WC from the brake hose and backing plate, which can sometimes be a time consuming chore.
Of no interest to anyone but I never did like drum brakes. I guess I was 20 then and home for Christmas vacation. My bil brought the parts and I helped him put new shoes on the ole 59 Pontiac. Well I didn’t really help much just watched. It was dang cold in the garage. But I learned enough and with a manual, did my own brakes on my dart a few years later. I’m just starting to recognize how many people helped educate me along the way. Having a manual though and being broke also helped. I’ve got a heater in my garage too now.
It’s definitely easier for a diy’er to replace a set of disc brake pads than a set of shoes on drum brakes. When I took adult night school auto shop 40+ years ago, the instructor would assemble the shoes and spring together, parts laying on the ground, then somehow he lift the whole assembly up & onto the backing plate. It was like a magic trick. I tried it again and again, with the result of dropping one (or both) of the shoes on my foot most of the time … lol … I eventually gave up on that idea, not talented enough.
Drum brakes are one of those things that once it clicks then they are pretty easy to do…
I remember replacing the rear drum brakes on a 1st gen Chevrolet Cavalier as fast as someone else was replacing the front pads and rotors… They were about the easiest shoes to replace though… lol
Removing the backing plate and installing all the brake parts on the work bench as a backup method seems like a good trick to have in a diy’er bag of tricks. Unlikely I’d have thought of that on my own. If someone was removing & installing drum brake shoes every day or every week, I can see how it would definitely become easier. See that green spring that connects to the adjuster’s lever? There’s a method to get that spring attached to the lever, and the lever pivot to the hole in the shoe, that’s easy-peasy. But I only do this job maybe once every 5 years, so I never recall that method until after I’ve skinned my knuckles. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever done this job without realizing I have the wrong order of parts on that pin at the very top, so I have to remove everything that connects to that pin and re-install them … lol …
I don’t have room for a comfy chair, either stand, kneel, or sit on the floor. The last drums I did was on our 86 Buick park ave, it had disc in front and drums in back. What threw me though was the little access hole for adjusting them. The outline was there like a knockout, but it was solid steel. Looking at the manual, there was another specialty tool to measure the distance between shoes and then put the drum on. I think I even bought the rubber plugs ahead of time. I made something to measure them and I guess it worked. Broke my spring tool too. Threw in the drawer in case I ever had to weld it together. The adjusting tool comes in handy sometimes for prying stuff anyway. Now why the heck would they not provide an exterior adjusting hole? Maybe saved 5 minutes of assembly time or something.
Well that’s a nice compressor sitting there. My little one is 20 years old so been thinking about replacing but has to fit under my sink. Over the past year or so there were a couple reports of tanks exploding. Not to be a denier or anything but I fail to understand how a hole in a tank with 100# can explode and blow a garage door out. Maybe with 250 or 500# I could understand.
My compressor’s safety valve sprung a big leak one time, tank pressured dropped from 125 psi to zero immediately, the only thing that I noticed beyond no pressure was a semi-loud hissing noise. I’m guessing the exploding tanks that are doing a lot of damage, the compressor’s psi limit switch is failing, & so the compressor continues to run until the tank catastrophically fails. Sort of like the difference between an aging water heater springing a leak, and one where the burner totally fails to shut off. That second type can propel the water heater into the air like a rocket.
The sign on the compressor reminds me of the time I asked for a second test for free at an emissions shop. There was a sign at least that large on the wall saying “the second test is free”. The shop manager refused to provide a second test for free, so I pointed out the big sign on the wall. He tore it down and tossed it in the garbage can … lol …
Depends how big the tank is. And if it’s just a hole, then no explosion. Corrosion could lead to a crack, the tank splits open, instantly releasing the gas and sending any loose parts flying.
Breaking a nozzle off a gas tank can cause a torpedo effect. I understand that. But pull the relief valve on 100# gives a loud noise but hardly explosive. I think George is probably closer to the truth with a malfunctioning safety valve, shut off switch, combined with a weak tank. Compressor keeps pumping well over the tested safe pressure, although I would expect the air distribution lines to rupture first. So just having trouble seeing the need for a safety cage around a 100# compressor. And it seems to be the same guy with the ruptured tank showing the damage that was done.
Yeah hi have seen all those still trying to understand how 100# can blow the ends off a tank. As a kid thought the neighbor was layer up for a while wyhen his truck hire exploded on him. Don’t. Know the pressure or if it was the ring or the tire. I was only ten.
I didn’t watch the vdo, taking too long to get to the point. Did the tank explode with just its nominal operating pressure which I presume is around 125 psi? Or did it explode b/c the shutoff switch to the compressor failed, and the safety valve failed to release also?
2 foot diameter tank end will have 3.14x12x12x100 = 45,216 pounds of force on it. Plenty enough to blow it off. Also, compressible gasses like air have lots of energy through expansion. A tank filled with water would just pop open at the crack, pressure would drop immediately.
Not an engineer or mathematician but isn’t that volume, not pressure? The pressure is 100# for the first and last cubic foot. I don’t see how it can multiply. 32# in a tire is not multiplied by the volume in the tire. It is all 32#. Just trying to understand the reasoning. But if I hear a loud bang one night maybe that will change my mind.
