So don't do this job without first verifying your brake fluid supply. That's a "duh" sort of moment that I am sorry I have to recommend to MYSELF.
Any ol' time you want to visit that which helps you stop, your brakes, I am all for it. I went into the BobD's brakes just because I had put 16,000 miles on them without even saying "hi."
Step 1. Get Set Up
Loosen the lugnuts and jack up the entire rear of the car at the nose cone mount. Perform your earthquake rock-the-car test to make sure everything is sitting secure. Release the emergency brake and have transmission in neutral, remove the wheels.
Step 2. Access The Brakes
Remove the 11mm drum-to-hub bolts, if you still have them. Have a good fresh box wrench and give the bolts a sharp rap CCW to crack them loose. Remove the dust caps from the adjusting holes underneath and move the star wheels many many teeth loose (left side screwdriver handle DOWN, right hole handle UP). If one is frozen, just do the one that moves as far as it will go. To remove the drums, scribe a scratch between the inside drum hole and the axle coming out the middle, then give it only a little wet of PB Blaster. See if you can slide the drum off. That would be a bonus. If it is stuck, make sure it rotates freely. Sometimes the shoes are fighting you and the drum will freeze as you pull. If it rotates easily but won't come off, look between the lug studs and drum holes for a tiny little bit of space opening up as you pry the outer perimeter of the drum. If you see this little wiggle, the drum is NOT locked to the hub flange, but rather the inner hole of the drum and the axle. A sharp rap to the perimeter of the drum as you pry, will usually spring it free.
Step 3. Disassembly
Remove shoes. It is "easy". If you have retainers (pre-'76), visegrip-clamp the circumference of the shoe retainer being pushed by the spring against the pin that is in the middle. Sight the pin through the back plate and go grab it on the backing plate side. You want to hold the pin still while you push the visegrips in and rotate 90* to free the retainer + spring from the pin. Remove the pins from behind the backing plate. Pry both of the lower shoes from the anchor where the adjusters are. Let the lower cross spring pull them in towards each other free of the anchor. Use your little visegrips to pinch the straight run of that spring and pull the end from one of the shoes, and remove the other end from the other shoe. Now get your big flat-blade screwdriver between the upper edge of the shoe and the wheel cylinder piston "clevis" and pull the shoe free from the clevis. You are fighting the big upper cross spring now, so watch that you do not pinch the wheel cylinder boot. When you do the same for the other shoe, be careful not to let the piston get driven into the wheel cylinder, it could pop out the free piston on the other side. That big upper cross spring is not your friend right now. You have the wheel hug flange blocking your movement, but rotate the flange until you see the dip in it come up where you want to pull the shoe away from the emergency brake crossbar. You need to get the emergency brake crossbar out of its slot against that upper cross spring pressure. This will help you then get the spring out of the shoes. You can use the flange as a fulcrum. You need to rotate the shoe to release the spring from its hole. Everything falls apart once that spring is out. You can then pivot the rear shoe down to get the emergency brake lever free of the cable end. It is mildly nightmarish with the flange in place, but removing the flange/hub and the 240 ft/lb big big axle nut to get more working room is a challenge too.
Step 4. Remove Wheel Cylinder
See if you have the boot on the bleeder screw. It is a perfect brake line fluid retainer. If not, see if you can borrow one off the front caliper. Loosen the 11mm brake line fitting then snug just enough not to leak. Now loosen the 13mm wheel cylinder retaining bolt. Tap the wheel cylinder so that it frees up and is moveable in the backing plate. It might need a little rotating action to free up, mindful of the brake line please. Remove the 13mm bolt. Now you may remove the brake line fitting where you move the wheel cylinder to get it free, NOT the brake line. We want the brake line to maintain its exact orientation to the wheel cylinder for a drama-free reinstallation (I cringe when I see people pull the steel brake line back to free it. Once it is bent, getting the 11mm fitting to start properly during reassembly is a game of chance). Immediately stick the bleeder boot on the end of the steel brake line. It holds the fluid back nicely.
Step 5. Cleaning
Clean the outside of the wheel cylinder. Remove the boots/pistons by pulling straight out of the wheel cylinder bore. Fluid and goop may follow. Remove the 7mm bleeder screw if it wants to unscrew. Gently work the boots off the pistons and make sure the pistons are given VIP treatment, do not so much as lay them down on the delicate o-ring seal surfaces.
Clean all parts with GumOut.
![Image](http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2010%2011/RearBrakes01.jpg)
Use a scuff pad, like a nylon scotchbrite or whatever wrapped around an extension where you have a good grip on the scuff pad. Keep wet with GumOut. You must twist the wheel cylinder in the opposite direction that you rotate and push the extension. Pretend you are screwing in the extension along 45* threads, as you pull the extension back out, follow the exact curve that you described going in. Repeat a couple of times. Now rotate the wheel cylinder 90* and repeat. Rotate the wheel cylinder 90* and do the same push/pull twist. And another 90*. Now reverse your twist so you can get a 45* "thread" in the opposite direction. Our goal is a nice 45* cross-hatch. You will get grey soup. Spray rinse the wheel cylinder bore and look carefully for any rust pits in the piston working surface area. A couple of pits at the exact middle of the bore is OK and typical. But if you see pits or longitudinal scratches in the working area of the bore, you pray and keep scuff-honing to reduce them as much as possible. If the wet surface reflection shows no distortion along the working surfaces (i.e. the inch or so to either side of the center half inch, yer good. Now do this very important Roadside Hack operation. Use a new razor blade to describe a circle around the outside lip of the wheel cylinder bore at a 45* angle. Make sure the blade is inserted enough to reach the actual bore surface. We are chamfering the opening for a trauma-free piston installation. Pull drag the blade, do not push. Go around until it feels perfectly smooth at this 45* angle. Now do a scuff pad circle over the razored chamfer. Clean entire wheel cylinder with a baptism of GumOut. Blast a shot in the bleeder screw and the bleeder bore in the wheel cylinder, too. Dry with a clean paper towel.
Carefully clean the pistons and merely rinse and wipe the the pressure seals with GumOut soaked paper towels. Here are your cleaned parts:
![Image](http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2010%2011/RearBrakes02.jpg)
Clean the springs and cross bar and retainers and the brake drum. Wash out the accumulated brake dust, then proceed to a 45* cross-hatch sanding with 220 grit emerycloth. Be very careful and thorough with this sanding, you may find, as I do, that it is best to set your hand in motion and keep it consistent as you slowly rotate the drum underneath, first in one direction, then the opposite direction. When you are done, wipe the inner surface down with GumOut soaked paper towel, and do the whole sanding operation again with a dry wipe to finish. Lightly sand the brake shoes until they have a flat scuffed surface. If you are by the side of the road with brake fluid contamination, try a major dousing with GumOut followed by blotting with a dry terrycloth rag. Repeat a few times. Let dry. Now sand, if the shoes get a nice dry looking scuffed surface, why not use them? If you still have a greasy darkened area, GumOut/blot/sand a few times and see if you can recover the shoe to serviceability. If the contamination is too deep, finish the remainder of these steps, you will still have decent brakes and a new item on your To Do list, replace shoes (with another sanding of the brake drum, don't forget). Here are the original BobD brake shoes.
![Image](http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2010%2011/RearBrakes04.jpg)
They are rivetted? There is a leading shoe and a trailing shoe? The leading shoe has greater lining area than the trailing shoe probably to equalize the wear between them, since the leading shoe applies more pressure by virtue of the drum's rotation (front drum brake buses utilize this Law of Physics by having two leading shoes per drum).
Step 6. Reassembly Prep
Clean the backing plate, taking pains to clean the brake shoe contact surfaces. If you want your brakes to apply and release nicely without creaking sounds, file/sand the contact areas smooth. Apply either grease or anti-seize paste to the contact areas. Clean and anti-seize the brake adjusters. They may be stuck. Squirt a shot of PB Blaster at the threads sticking out and in the end where you can see the bolt inside the adjuster. Stick a large flat screwdriver blade sideways through the slot where the shoes go, and a light but serious Visegrip grip on the adjusting star. That will allow you to work them free of each other. Sand the wheel hub flange smooth and be especially attentive to the pilot surface where the drum meets the hub. Smear a light thorough coat of anti-seize to the flange, and a dollop to the wheel stud threads. Clean the drum contact surfaces on the wheels themselves as well:
![Image](http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2010%2011/RearBrakes03.jpg)
Step 7. Reassemble/Install/Bleed Wheel Cylinder.
You can reassemble your wheel cylinders and bleed the rear brakes using no more than a new small style GumOut cap of brake fluid. Here's how:
Remove a bleeder boot from a disassembled brake line. Allow line to drip into the new small style GumOut cap, or any other plastic cap with an inner "well". Fill it. It is about two tablespoons. Put bleeder boot back on and make sure it is nicely seated on the flare end of the brake line.
Install your clean outer piston dust boot into its groove in the piston. Dip a finger in the brake fluid and wet the wheel cylinder bore. Repeat finger dip and wet one of the pistons around its seal. Dead-on push the piston into the bore and snap the boot around the perimeter of the wheel cylinder. Install bleeder screw finger tight. Hold wheel cylinder with that piston facing down. Finger dip in the brake fluid cap and wet the other piston's seal and install it with boot already in the groove of the piston. Do not push the piston in all the way. Bring this beautiful rebuild over to a backing plate and place it in the hole while aligning the 11mm brake line fitting to the wheel cylinder threads. Pull the bleeder boot off and get the threads started before you push the wheel cylinder home. Lightly secure the 11mm fitting with an eye on not letting brake fluid leak, get it done promptly. Install the 13mm bolt that holds the wheel cylinder to the bearing housing/backing plate. Snug is good, crazy tight is not. I do a hand tight with a finish bunt to the wrench. That is exactly 14 ft/lbs. Now secure the brake line fitting with a hand tight + bunt to the 11mm wrench. Loosen the 7mm bleeder screw. Keep it open until fluid starts to drool. Tap the wheel cylinder to release any pockets of air. Drool? Now close bleeder lightly. With the one piston not quite in all the way, you will have a wheel cylinder with more fluid in it than normal. Repeat wheel cylinder procedure over on other side. Is the brake line offering up a slow drip of brake fluid as required? If the drip has stopped because you borrowed too much over on the first side, you are allowed to depress brake pedal short and quick, followed by a very slow return. Do the bleeder screw open until drool operation. You need to allow the residual pressure in the system to fill the wheel cylinders (when you wrestle the shoes on with those cross springs, you will drive air out of the wheel cylinders just by cracking the bleeders at shoe install time below)
Step 8 Put Shoes Back On
Should you be so blessed as to have leading and trailing shoes (woooo) put the longer lining shoe towards the front of the car. The trailing shoe will have the emergency brake lever on the outside of the shoe web. AS A GENERAL RULE, this is the least painful installation technique:
Pick up rear shoe and get emergency brake cable installed on lever.
Insert big annoying cross spring through the back of the shoe web and do that weird twist to get the spring to lay down correctly.
Now install the other shoe to the spring. Note that I said, "install the shoe to the spring".
You will have two shoes connected to each other by a spring, and things are going to get ugly.
Bring upper end of rear shoe towards the wheel cylinder while sneaking the spring-with-other-shoe through the canyon between the flange and the backing plate/wheel cylinder. Try to get the rear shoe sort of lined with the piston slot on the wheel cylinder. Now. Get. The. Crossbar, the emergency brake applicator crossbar. One slot in it is wider than the other. That is the side that faces the rear shoe. Cram it on the emergency brake lever. The inside edge of the crossbar will sort of butt the slot in the shoe. Now. You Must Work. The. Crossbar. Into. The. Front. Shoe. I pivot the shoe at as crazy an angle as possible so that it is sort of getting horizontal, and pry it down onto the cross bar as the spring extends with major resistant obstinency. A large flat-bladed screwdriver can be pressed into service as a pry bar. The trick is find the slot quick before the spring wins the tractor pull against your muscles/patience/self-esteem. As you do this, the wheel cylinder will be in the vicinity. You need to consider if you can get the front shoe into the slot of the front piston while you are at war. Please avoid the boots, and try to stay clear of getting the shoe caught in the lip of the backing plate. For you lucky retainer-equipped brake people, stick the pins in the backing plate from the backside and do not let go. Push hard. Look at the flat part that is now coming through the shoe. That is the orientation you want to have the visegripped retainer at. If the pin flat part is at 12/6 oclock, for example, have the center slot in the retainer up/and/down. Throw the spring on the pin and chase it with the retainer. Push the pin towards you from the inside of the backing plate. Your pin push must exceed the spring tension you will be battling with the visegripped retainer. As soon as you get the retainer slot through the flat part of the pin under mighty spring tension, you need to rotate the visegrips 90* to find the retaining part of the retainer. And if you hit the side of the backing plate with the visegrips just before 90* victory? Try to rotate the pin that your finger is pushing and the visegrips back together as a unit, then hold the pin and try forward again with the visegrips (if you have new hardware, be sure to test-fit the pin and the retainer well ahead of time, it has been known to happen that the stupid skinny retainer slot is too small for the stupid fat pin. Make them fit nice nicely ahead of time). Install the fully retracted adjusters. You can pry the shoes out of the way and slip them into the anchor holes with a dab of anti-seize and grease. Hook the large U-hook side of the easy cross spring to the inside of the shoe web lower hole of the rear shoe, and apply your little visegrips to the "shank" of the spring to help you hook it through the inside-the-web lower hole of the front shoe. You may not stick these springs on the outside of the webs, particularly with the late buses, you know why? Because it is the cross springs that hold the shoes against the contact pads of the backing plates.
Step 9. Bleed The Rear Brakes.
Courtesy of the springs that fought you, your wheel cylinder pistons are now being pushed towards each other. Grab a good absorbent little hand towel. Open a bleeder screw with the towel ready to catch spit. You should get a little spit of air and fluid. Do the other one. Spit too. If you are having an excellent day, just a nice little drool of pure fluid will come out. I got spit. Go to front of car and step on the brake pedal until you feel the pedal hit the front master cylinder piston. Sloooooooooowly bring the pedal up. Repeat the bleeder screw spit test. It only takes once if you had a successful drool in Step 7. And if you had no brake fluid in your storage, you will find that the reservoir still has ample fluid left.
Step 10. Finish Up
Install drums and 11mm bolts which only need to be hand tight + a little bunt on the box wrench. Install wheels. Hand tighten the lug nuts and give them a good bunt even with free-spinning wheels. Go underneath and adjust brakes. Both sides of the car follow the same rule:
......screwdriver handle......
Up Yours unless You're Right
...left......................right
left hole
Moving the handle up pushes the star teeth down as they pass the hole on the left. This is moving the adjuster clockwise in relation to the anchor. The threads of the slotted bolt that engage the shoe will push out.
right hole
Moving the handle down pushes the star teeth up as they pass the hole on the right side. This is moving the adjuster clockwise in relation to the anchor. The threads of the slotted bolt that engage the shoe will push out.
Do each adjuster three teeth at a time. We want them to push out in equal increments. Eventually, the wheel will become sticky to turn. Move adjusters out until the wheel is definitely sticky to turn. Do both sides of the car. Go up front and press firmly on the brake pedal down quick, up slow. Apply the ebrake. Press firmly on the brake pedal again. Slowly release. Release ebrake. Now go back to each wheel. Crack a bleeder with your burp towel there to catch any fluid, just to see if any spit occurs. If just fluid, good. See if your wheel is now easier to turn. If it is still sticky, just release the adjusters two teeth each (left side - handle down two teeth, right side - handle up two teeth. Wheel should turn with a mild driveline drag and perhaps a scraping sound for less than half a rotation.
Check your pedal. Firm? Good. Not so firm? You can drive home anyway and do a proper full brake bleed.
Now is a good time to adjust the ebrake cables if necessary. Pull handle out 5 clicks. See if the rear wheels have any new drag. Yes? Go to 9 clicks. Good tough drag? Maybe seized up solid? Both sides, even?
You are good to go. If not, release ebrake completely, and make sure wheels are back to the original mild driveline drag with perhaps a scraping sound for less than half a rotation (a new ugly constant drag suggests binding ebrake cables. To get home safely, pull down on the flexible black cable under the spring plate, give it some jerks and try to straighten it, and see if the wheel frees up after your tender ministrations. Once you have the wheel free, abort ebrake adjustment procedure and put "new ebrake cables" on your To Do list).
You pull the boot up inside the cabin at the base of the ebrake lever and unlock the double-nutted 10mm nuts. Bring the lower nuts down to the lever "eyes" if they are sticking up above where they get pulled. You move the 10/11mm square nuts on the late bus cables underneath the car until the cables do not have slop through the equalizer. Then you pull the ebrake out 5 clicks, and adjust for mild drag. If one wheel is free, and the other is draggy, tighten free side (and on later buses, be ready to back off draggy side a little, since your tightening actually applies the other side a little with that nifty equalizer bar).
9 clicks and things should be bound up. At the end of your adjustment, release fully and test for "mild driveline drag and perhaps a scraping sound for less than half a rotation".
Brakes. Don't leave home without them. Brake fluid, too.
Colin