Biohazard

is it at all common for drum brakes (rear) to squeak???? my wife drives a '00 pathfinder and her rear brakes squeak a bit. brake dust? can you turn (resurface) drums??

Mohamed

You're sure it's the rear brakes right? Yes brake dust can cause squeaking, take off your drums and spray the inside of the unit down with brake cleaner. You may also lubricate the backing plate at various points where the shoes contact the plate as sometime when those shoes move, they rub against the plate causing the squeaking noise.

Also, for turning drums it really only if you feel a vibration coming from the rear. To test this, drive up to say 45 mph or 50 mph, apply the "E-brake" maybe one or two clicks, no more otherwise you'll skid sideways. Then release. Try to keep in a straight path. If you feel a vibration, your drums may be out of round, take them to any Chucks, Kragen's, whatever and have them resurface them.

Biohazard

i'd say i'm 95% sure its the rear. we just put new pads and cross-drilled rotors on the front. i'll try the e-brake test and check out the drums this weekend probably - anything i should know about taking a drum off of a 4WD wheel??

Mohamed

No. but if you are taking shoes off, becareful, those return springs and such are seriously strong on a 4wd.

It might be a good idea to go ahead and do a rear brake adjustment while you are at it. I take it you know how to adjust your shoe clearance right? If not, first test if you need an adjustment or not by lifting the rear and turn your drums (with your hand). Idiot advice: don't forget to release the parking brake and put wheel blocks on the front so your truck doesn't roll. If there is a slight drag (caused by the shoes), you're fine. If not, there is a star wheel in the middle of the unit, it will usually rotate one way provided there is a lock pin in the teeth of the star wheel and simply do maybe one or two clicks, and put the drum back on. Do the drag test again, if it drags you're done, if not, remove the drum and again turn the wheel. The star wheel adjusts your shoe clearence to the drum.

Another note, sometimes drums have a hole in them that has access to the star wheel, if that's the case, you can use a thin flathead screwdriver to adjust the shoe clearance without removing the drums. Just be sure of the drag.

[Edit] even though you said you put new rotors and pads on the front, sometimes aftermarket pads will squeak, did you also put anti-squeal lubricant on the back of the shims (the back to where it contacts the back of the brake pad to a metal plate called a shim) ?

Biohazard

my cousin owns and operates an auto shop and i got him to take care of the installation. i'll have to ask him about the shim lubrication. i've done plenty of brake jobs, but never on 4WD - i was always told it was a royal PITA. to be honest i've never had to - my truck has 98K on it and doesn't need brake work yet. the pathfinder has had brake issues from the 1.5 year mark on (35K on). the brakes are EXTREMELY touchy - we warped the front rotors twice already (hence the cross-drilled rotors). other people have told us the same thing about pathfinders and their brakes - live and learn

thanks for all the help!!

Biohazard

did the adjustment and hosed off the inside of the drum and the brakes with cleaner and the squeaking went away (at least for now). i did the adjustment a little different than you described though - read it in a manual once. i adjusted the brakes so that if i have the parking brake off the drums don't rub at all, but if i pull the brake up one notch, the drums drag a little. not sure if one way is better than the other but sqeaky no more

since the sqeaking stopped when i adjusted the rear brakes, i'm pretty sure the problem was back there. in the event they start to sqeak again, i imagine my only recourse would be to replace the shoes and resurface the drums. anyone know if you can do that with drums??

Mohamed

You CAN resurface drums, although in class, I could never get it right on the machine (that's just me though), but it can be done. Since you said your shoe clearence is not touching or dragging on the drum and the squeaking went away, I wonder if your shoes are OEM or aftermarket. Industry standards are to have a slight drag in the rear drums as you turn them freely. As I always tell people, in brake applications, if you don't want squeaking, your best bet is OEM (there are few applications where aftermarket maybe better or about the same, only cheaper). Something about the materials they use in the aftermarket pads just makes the squeaking sound.

Oh another thing, if you drum is full of crap (meaning brake dust) sometimes that can cause squeaking so perhaps when you cleaned the drums up, it cleared away the particulate matter that accumulates over time in the drum housing, and thus cleared your drum.

Glad though your sound went away.