What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
Any (old) drum brake equipped - Coke Can for Brake Drums - edlithgow

Encouraged by the rave reviews for "Coke Can for Brake Disks", here's a sequel.

Rusty brake drums don't seem to be as much of an issue / MOT inspection fail point as rusty disks, though they can make it difficult to get your wheels off.

Exhibit A : Mucky looking drum interior.

[url=www.servimg.com/view/18149521/138][img]i21.servimg.com/u/f21/18/14/95/21/th/img_4411.jpg[/img][/url]

Exhibit B: Fair bit of rust and dust on the moving parts.

[url=www.servimg.com/view/18149521/137][img]i21.servimg.com/u/f21/18/14/95/21/th/img_4410.jpg[/img][/url]

Exhibit C : Coke can makes a good scraper / clean-up tool, and leaves aluminium on surfaces and threads.

[url=www.servimg.com/view/18149521/139][img]i21.servimg.com/u/f21/18/14/95/21/th/img_4412.jpg[/img][/url]

Exhibit D : Rub parts with aluminium foil with a very little sunflower or linseed oil. (self-forming metallic paint). Leave them in the sun.

[url=www.servimg.com/view/18149521/140][img]i21.servimg.com/u/f21/18/14/95/21/th/img_4413.jpg[/img][/url]

Where the parts move against each other, substitute a very little high temp grease (or nothing) or you might glue them together.

I used a little PTFE tape around pivot axes and on the thread of the automatic adjuster, in the hope of finally seeing an automatic adjuster actually work.

Didn't, and therefore probably not worth the tiny risk of getting PTFE on the brake shoes.

Exhibit E. Rusty drum. I applied sunflower oil and "metallised" it with the can-disk you can see at one side.

[url=www.servimg.com/view/18149521/141][img]i21.servimg.com/u/f21/18/14/95/21/th/img_4414.jpg[/img][/url]

Exhibit F: Aluminium-grey brake drum. Since I didn't want to glue the wheel on I sandwiched some polythene sheet between the wheel and the drum. The fire risk is....acceptable.

[url=www.servimg.com/view/18149521/142][img]i21.servimg.com/u/f21/18/14/95/21/th/img_4415.jpg[/img][/url]

This is a FWD car so of course I couldn't use engine power on the rear drums, as I did on the front disks.

Any (old) drum brake equipped - Coke Can for Brake Drums - RobJP

You got 'rave reviews' for the other post ?

Funny that. I seem to recall most people thinking the only 'rave' thing about it was the 'rave'-ing lunacy involved !

Any (old) drum brake equipped - Coke Can for Brake Drums - Bolt

You got 'rave reviews' for the other post ?

Funny that. I seem to recall most people thinking the only 'rave' thing about it was the 'rave'-ing lunacy involved !

Yep /

Any (old) drum brake equipped - Coke Can for Brake Drums - edlithgow

You got 'rave reviews' for the other post ?

Funny that. I seem to recall most people thinking the only 'rave' thing about it was the 'rave'-ing lunacy involved !

Well, I don't only post on here. Its easy to post on multiple forums, or provide a link to the original discussion, so you get a range of input. For example, from the Bangernomics forum:-

"I stopped reading when they said you were putting lives at risk. What, by rubbing the brake disc with aluminium foil? I'll be able to see out my anus if I roll my eyes any harder."

Who could he be referring to?

From bobistheoilguy.com:

"The final result looks really good!"

"I admire your your thriftiness, Duck. You cleaned up that drum really well."

"Cool thread."

Its not all sweetness on there though. I was a bit sarcastic about a "Defensive Ammo" review thread (American's, y'know?), and, once I'd explained, my posts got a one way ticket to Guantanamo. They're a bit defensive about thier defensive ammo.

Cultural differences....

Anyway, I was rotating my least bad tyres to the back for the rainy season, the way you're counter-intuitively supposed to, so a chance to see how the disk and drum treatment has held up.

Drivers side disk: Not too well. This was the first one I did and I was concerned about contamination, so used no binder, and its re-rusted quite a lot.

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/296][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7619.jpg[/img][/url]

I cleaned it up as before then used sunflower oil and foil (sparingly) on the disk rim but nothing on the inner boss because I thought it might get spun out onto the disk and pads. We'll see.

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/297][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7620.jpg[/img][/url]

Drivers side drum, which was bound with sunflower oil, has held up pretty well, but I re-did it anyway.

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/295][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7618.jpg[/img][/url]

Last time I just used a flattened can with a bolt through it. This time I tried a slightly more elaborate construction which didn't last very long.

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/298][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7621.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/294][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7617.jpg[/img][/url]

Passenger side disk has held up better, but here I used a little superglue on the rim to bind the aluminium.

The passenger side caliper surface treatment seems to have held up quite well too.

The same method was used for both calipers, but I had trouble stripping this caliper because I didn't know to ignore the prevailing internyet advice (to use compressed air) and just blow the piston out with the brake pedal, so it was off for quite a long time, and probably got more thorough treatment as a result.

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/301][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7624.jpg[/img][/url]

I repeated this, and this time also used some on the inner boss, abrading/metallising with a bit of arrow shaft in a power drill. I thought this would reduce the chance of contaminating the disks/pads but wasn't very effective at laying down metal. If there's a next time, I think I'll just use the engine.

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/302][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7625.jpg[/img][/url]

Passenger side drum the polymerised sunflower oil is rust-stained, as it was after treatment, but theres no sign of further rusting of the treated surface, so it appears to be largely stabilised.

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/300][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7623.jpg[/img][/url]

I re-treated it though it probably wasn't really necessary

[url=servimg.com/view/18149521/299][img]i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/14/95/21/th/img_7622.jpg[/img][/url]

There's not much aluminium in the centre of the hub, probably because it was quite smooth due to the use of grease om the studs. This means the treatment rate to some extent self adjusting.

The drums were quite deeply rusted. It would have been difficult to clean to bright metal, but the sunflower oil seems to soak in and stabilise the surface. There seems to be a possibility of finding a protective treatment dor the disk rims and boss that wont contaminate the disks. Without one they re-rust badly.

Edited by edlithgow on 06/05/2017 at 15:54