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So, the other night I had the rear of my '01 9-3 lifted for some exhaust work, and I decided to make sure the rear wheels spun freely with the parking brake released. Guess what...something was dragging on both sides. It feels like there's one point in each revolution where it catches, which seemed really puzzling, so today I took apart the passenger's side to investigate.
At first I wondered if the rotor was warped and a high spot was catching on the pads with every rotation. I took out the pads and found they were wearing a little unevenly (thicker on top, IIRC) but the rotor still dragged when I spun it without the pads in place. Process of elimination would suggest the parking brake is to blame.
I started by turning the star wheel adjuster and the dragging seemed to go away, but after applying and releasing the parking brake, it was back to dragging again. I thought about calling it a day, no loss no gain, but the rotor indexing screw easily came loose, so I just had to see what was going on in there!
I've never worked on drum brakes before, but thanks to photos from SeeVTSaab and Platonoff, I got a pretty good idea of what I was looking at. Thing is, I just can't tell for sure if everything is working as it should be! Also, the shoes and the inside of the rotor don't look as worn as I would expect if they were dragging...in fact, both were slightly rusty even though the car had only been sitting for about a day with the parking brake applied.
Now, is it normal that when I pull on the cable, only the nearest shoe moves? At first I thought this meant the spreader linkage was rusted, so I took it apart and wire-brushed it before reassembling with lithium grease. Same result though, so does that mean the opposite shoe only moves after the first one contacts the rotor?
At this point I wanted to put everything back together, but wasn't sure if the shoes were in the right position. Obviously there is a stop between the upper ends of the shoes, but the bottoms seem to float freely except for the adjuster. I put them where I thought they were basically centered and adjusted them until I could put the rotor back on. Are you supposed to do anything critical at this stage?
Well, it should be no surprise that after I put everything back together, the rotor was still dragging at that one spot in every rotation. Once again I fiddled with the adjuster, but only succeeded in making it so loose that now the wheel can still turn with the brake applied! Seems I have a choice of "dragging and working" or "dragging and not working." Great...
Any ideas? Has anyone else encountered this once-per-turn type of dragging? Should I be suspicious of the wheel bearing, even though I did get it to spin freely at one point in time?
posted by 71.173.57...
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