How do you remove the drum brakes from a 1977 corolla?

Answer 1

I own five of these cars, three liftbacks, one sports coupe, and one sedan. I have had problems with all of them with getting the drums off. First, I assume you are at least an aspiring mechanic and know a little about drum brakes, the parking brake must be off. There are two holes in the drums where you can put bolts in to break them loose. Be careful though, because I've seen plenty of these get broken and stripped and then you're pretty much SOL. Get some WD-40 or whatever type of penetrating oil and spray the center of the drum where it mates to the hub. This is the part that is stuck. When you are tightening the bolts make sure you tighten them sequentially so you don't twist and contort things. Take a hammer and tap (not pound) on the drum. Oftentimes you will hear a loud POP! and you think you broke something. This is normal. You should then tighten both bolts as far in as you can. If you can get bolts that are long enough you can just keep twisting them in until the drum comes off. Usually the bolts end before it's off though. Pull out the bolts and then you should have a little bit of movement where you can push the drum back into position and pull it back out without too much effort. You can continuously do this and hope you can get it to move out a little more each time. Just don't pull out so hard that you pull the car off the jack stands. That's no fun. If it just won't move, get some sand paper and sand the center part of the hub. It's the rust that is holding it on. I used a small peanut grinder, (I don't know the official name for it...) and that worked just fine. I have found it is almost always the last half inch that just won't go. After you get it off just clean the rust from the entire hub and be sure you clean off ALL the oil you used to get the drum off. Otherwise it will fling onto the brake shoes, and that is not good. I know a lot of tricks with these cars and if you need any other help email me. I encoded my communications address so scanner spammers won't pick it up. It is Foxau2 at Juno dot Com If someone does spam me manually, keep in mind all IP addresses are traceable. Have a great day!