drum break help.

[biggie16g]

I have a gs450L and am wondering about the rear drum break. I installed new shoes and am fairly confident they are adjusted properly but the break seems to do nothing or next to nothing when moving. It does hold the bike on hills or when stopped. Do these type breaks just kinda suck or does anyone have any tricks or tips for adjusting? Thanks guys.

[JEEPRUSTY]

Drum brakes work fine. There should be an adjustment procedure int he manual for your bike.

I assume everything was spotless and the drum surface cleaned with brake cleaner.

[Billy Ricks]

If you just did them it may take a few days to wear them in. Rear brakes don't have near the stopping power of the front brakes and you should be doing most of the stopping with the fronts anyway. It might help to go back in and hit the drum itself with a little emery cloth lightly to get some hatch marks so the drum and shoes can wear in together. Being a rear it should be a single leading shoe set up so adjustment is easy. Double leading shoe is a little more trouble.

[7981GS]

Drum BREAK.
Here's one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65xIZrnQxwc

Eric

[Billy Ricks]

Drum BREAK.
Here's one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65xIZrnQxwc

Eric

I didn't know which band it would be but I knew what the link would open.

[7981GS]

I didn't know which band it would be but I knew what the link would open.

Eric

[Bookmon]

And here I am, thinking by the post title, we'd be talking about "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida. Oh well. Next time.

[pete]

I can lock the rear wheel with my drum brake...

Did you give the lining a quick sand with some coarse sand paper? They can develop a glaze when not in use and unless you break it up it will be quite weak.

[TooManyToys]

The contact pattern on a drum brake is very critical and some suppliers do not do a very good job of radius grinding the mounted segment to the drum radius. Plus if your drum is worn that's another factor. So is if you have any grooving or uneven wear of the drum's rubbing surface.

All of the above means that a long burnishing time is necessary before you are going to achieve full effectiveness. When riding you can go through the procedure of about every mile do a snub (not a full stop) when you think about it and it's convenient. The procedure FMVSS procedure for burnish in linings before we would do a stopping test required 200 brake applications from 60 mph every mile to fully seat friction material. Most of the performance increase would come in within 50 stops. But of course that is with linings that have been OE ground to the proper radius.

[biggie16g]

re.

I did scuff the pads and the drum. bike only has 5900 miles on it so even though i didnt mic the drum im 90 percent certain its ok. Ill run over the adjustment procedure tom then try the break in stops. thanks for the help guys!

[koolaid_kid]

You can also remove the wheel and check the contact area on the shoes themselves. The curvature of new shoes are usually not exactly the same as the radius of a worn drum, so I suspect you will see that only part of each shoe is actually making contact with the drum. Just a thought.

[daturat100r]

take the wheel and shoes to a commercial brake shop and have the shoes ground to match radius of drum.
Some people try taping abrasive to the drum and use that to try and correct radius problems.Doesn,t really work very well as the abrasive effects actual radius.
Another help is open up the drum and look at where the shoes touch the drum and and if it is only small attack that area with some coarse abrasive to help lengthen the contact patch.
Most of my bikes have had drum brakes and i would not put in off the shelf shoes and would only have existing shoes relined and ground to match the drum.Chamfers on the leading edges of shoes may need to be increased to prevent too severe braking causing wheel lockup.

[surviverguy]

Also be sure the arm that attaches the cable to the shaft at the hub is in the correct position. The force of leverage won't be right if the arm isn't in the correct position.