Just finished my rear brakes. I ended up replacing the shoes and bought a kit with new springs, washers/clips and pins. The guy at NAPA also convinced me to buy this, and I don't blame him. It was under $10, and I don't doubt that a quality version can be helpful. This thing, however, was useless.


I won't go into all the ways it failed, including bending out of shape multiple times, but all I ever managed to do with it was get the adjuster springs off. Never back on. I got the two springs that go over the pins that hold the shoes in place with just my hand...Never got that part of the tool to work.

So a couple things. This video makes the job easy. If you watch, when he gets the new shoes on, they stay in place really nicely once the pins are in. Mine did not. He mentions you could use a ratcheting clamp type thing usually used for woodworking to pull the two shoes together and hold them there. I have those, but none big enough to span both shoes. I struggled for probably an hour trying to hold it all together and hook springs before finally giving up and actually thinking about it for a while...and came up with this.



After that I didn't need two hands to force the shoes toward each other and two more hands to hook the adjuster spring. I looked up a few tutorials and didn't see this anywhere, so I figure it's another option to add to the tool kit.

Now that adjuster spring...In the video, Tim mentions this spring might be the hardest part of the job for people, and he's right. Once I finally got the strap on there to hold things in place, I spent another hour trying to hook the end of that spring into its hole, using the special tool. What finally worked, ridiculously well...so well I wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed for buying and using a specialty tool or proud of myself for figuring out another way, was a long, skinny flathead screwdriver. You just slide it through the spring hook from underneath, put the end of the screwdriver in the correct hole for the spring hook, find a spot to leverage against, and let the spring slide right into the hole. No pliers, no fighting, no special tool. About 5 seconds and it's on, and you wonder what all the fuss is about with that damn spring. Sort of hard to see the hole in the photo, at least on my computer, but the flathead end of the screwdriver is in the hole.







The first side took me 4 hours. The second side took 1. In my opinion, there is no need for a special tool for this job, and in fact I'm willing to bet that even with a quality specialty tool, the screwdriver method is still far easier.

 

I found it easier to put the shoes together on the floor, leaving only the small lower spring out until installed on the backing plate with the two alignment pins and springs. Opening the bleeder on the wheel cylinder will help with slipping the assembled shoes over when the wheel cylinder is collapsed.

 

Interesting. My first shoes lasted 300,000 miles and only had to be replaced because they got soaked in oil, so I don't see doing this job again...but if for some reason I'm ever back in there I'll have to try that.