How to Use a Brake Shoe Tool

Brake shoes will one day be a technology of the past. Most autos come equipped with disc brakes on the front wheels and drum brakes on the rear. High-end cars and many SUV-style vehicles come with four wheel disc brakes. The drum brake concept is a simple one. Two shoes with brake lining expand outward to contact the drum and stop the vehicle. Drum brakes have several components, such as levers, spring linkage rods, and springs. The brake shoe tool was designed to keep the skin on your knuckles and handle the strong brake drum springs.

Instructions

1

Attach one hook of the open pliers to the backside of the brake shoe spring rod end, near the top shoe's hold-down pin. Attach the other hook over the edge of the backing plate. Squeeze the pliers and the hook will stretch the spring over the pin and it comes unhooked.

2

Cup the circle end of the pliers over the nail cap or pin cap on the short spring that holds the shoes to the backing plate. Hold the nail pin from the back to prevent it from turning. Rotate the tool and the cap 90 degrees so the nail end groove slides off the cap and releases the short spring.

3

Hook one end of the shoe spring into the shoe during re-installation. Hook the the other end of the spring over the long rod handle of the spring tool with a half-cupped end on it. Place the half-cupped end over the top shoe pivot pin. Pry the spring onto the pin until the spring is hooked behind the top pivot pin. This rod end is just a special leverage tool. It can be used to hook and attach other springs during reassembly.

4

Insert the brake adjusting tool into the bottom slot of the backing plate once the brake shoes and brake drum have been reinstalled. The blade of the adjusting tool must contact a star wheel inside the drum. It must be pried up or down to expand the star wheel adjuster to adjust the brakes closer to the drum. It is also used to loosen the star wheel adjuster to adjust down the brakes for drum removal.