How to Remove Drum Brakes

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Doug. I work with twenty great guys in St. Louis at Doug Jenkins Custom Hot Rods and we're going to do some work for you today on Expert Village. So the first step is to pull them, that didn't work. And you tap it gently with a hammer. He grabbed a steel dead blow hammer that was handy. You won't hit it very hard with a steel hammer because you can break pieces of that cast off real easy. Who cares, we're throwing the drums out anyways but it's just dangerous to break them. Since tapping gently with the steel dead blow hammer didn't work, Mark's going to remove the little protective window insert for the brake adjustment. They're automatic adjusting brakes but they still have a window in them so you can adjust them and back them off. Mark is thinking that there's enough wear in these drums so that the brake shoes will be touching it hard enough to keep the drums from coming off. So, he's got a tool designed specifically for adjusting drum style brakes. A screwdriver is ok as well but this just works a whole lot easier. And there's an adjuster wheel in there, its a star wheel, it has like fifteen-twenty points on it, and he's going to turn it hopefully in the right direction long enough so that it can turn easily and come right off. If it doesn't come right off after he backs the brake off, there's two more tools that we can try; three more tools we can try but they will come off, they always do. So, after loosening up the brake, he's going to tap a little bit more and see if they come off."