Hand Brake

A screwdriver can be inserted through this hole (drum installed)

to release the adjuster for easy removal of old drum and adjusting

with the new drum and shoes.

I think the condition of the shoes is fairly typical when knackered,

they get very neglected and only see maintenance when they fail.

 

Refitting was quite straight forward, however, there has been a change

for the pin and spring that holds the brake shoe against the backplate.

The new spring is a bigger diameter and cannot be passed through the

hole in the axle flange, also there is a cup washer to stop the head of the

pin going through the centre of the spring. The head of the new pin has

no pozi drive or even a slot to enable the 90deg turn to lock it in position.

Use some pliers to turn the cup washer with the pin to lock it.

It's a complete bodge to save on part numbers by vauxhall.                      

 

The drums were replaced with new. The old drums were very worn and

also had some hairline cracks in the handbrake shoe surface.

 

I decided to try some EBC greenstuff brake pads, the makers claim much

improved performance with minimum brake dust over std pads.

Fitting the new pads  was not quite as easy as I would have liked, for a start the

overall thickness of the 2 pads combined was 1.6mm more than std pads,

add this to full thickness discs meant that the pistons had to be pushed way

back into the cylinders in order just to get the pads in.

 

 

 

A good tip here (not mine)is to slacken the bleed nipple whilst pushing the piston in,

thus pushing out some fluid so residual pressure does not push the piston back out.

 

Then I found that I could not drive the second pin through the holes in the pads.

I had to remove the pads and found that the hole positions were not the same

as the std vx pads.

 

I had to file the holes to reduce the 3.9mm to about 2.5mm before I could

fit the pins.

 

In the end everything fitted, handbrake adjusted and now works fine.

I just hope that ebc greenstuff fit better on the front.

 

In the end these pads (DP 2761)squeeled like a stuck pig so I sent them

back and am waiting for EBC to get back to me.

I replaced them with std vx pads until Ebc get sorted.

The front ones however work just fine, better braking and almost no dust !

Update 29/12/02

After 2 sets of greenstuff pads with new discs to try and cure judder, I have

tried Vauxhall OE front pads and they are much better than the greenstuff,

there is more dust, but the increased performance far outweighs this problem.

I used to use the trade club pads. The OE pads and trade club discs are the best

combination I have tried to date.