Wagner Rear Drum Brake Rebuild Kit

Wagner Rear Drum Brake Rebuild Kit

Cost: Approx £40

Background:

There was no brake parts of any use on the car at any point. For the rear they were missing damaged, rotted and rusted away. I needed to have replacements. The brake shoes were not in a to bad a way but had previously been soaked with oil and brake fluid. They were useless now.

What’s in the Box:

The kits come a pack of three, a box of springs, and a set of hardware for each drum itself left and right sides. I have only put the brake cylinder here for reference and does not come as part of the kit. I purchased these extra so I took a photo of the whole lot.

The springs:

These are colour coded, Blue, Yellow, Green and Purple. The blue, yellow & green springs are for the movement of the shoes and the purple springs are the hold down springs for the shoes themselves. Also with the springs are the hold down pins and the caps for the top and bottom of the hold down springs. The spring box contains two sets of everything for each wheel either front or back. A small set of instructions for the locations of the springs. There is no Parking Brake to shoe link spring supplied with this kit for the rear drums.

The hardware:

Each box holds the bottom section of the shoes, this consists of the auto-adjusting bar, adjusting bar cap and washer, the self-adjusting lever, the self-adjusting cable to the adjusting lever, the cable guide and a rubber grommet for each drum backing plate. A set of small instructions for the position of the parts.

Quality:

Springs

The springs are dip painted by the looks of it in the original colours of the springs. The Springs look the same as the originals and obviously the tension is a match for the originals.

Hardware

The quality of the hardware is excellent, I put some copper slip into the cap end and tried to push the cap onto the mechanism. This game me trouble and would not go on. The reason – the tolerances were so close that the air could not escape from the cap and a pressure pocket had built up. This is a good thing, I managed to twist the capon and after a while it was on. The cap moved smoothly and stayed on. The cable has a nice thick crimp at each end on a fairly think stranded cable. The adjusting lever has no sharp edges and the cog teeth is crisp and well-defined. The engagement of the lever fitted well into the teeth. The self-adjusting bar is clearly marked up with L and R depending on the side. Obviously one of threads is a left hand or reversed thread in order to make the adjusting work. These must be placed on the correct corresponding side.

Issues:

There was only a slight issue with the green spring which attaches to the top of the secondary shoe on the left. The reason is that the hook that goes into the locating hole on the shoe is cut perfectly square to the length of spring. The spring sits at a slight angle when attached, this was causing the spring to bend down to attach to the top of the backing plate anchor pin. After carefull study I removed the spring and put into a vice and filed the spring very tip a minute amount 45deg to the angle of the spring body. When replaced into the hole the spring now sat a lot more comfortably and did not have a noticeable bend. DO NOT go mad with the filing or the spring will not fit at all. Do this at your own risk. Everything fitted together well on the kit, everything fitted as it should do. The instructions were clear enough and was pretty much a dead easy installation. I would liked to have seen the Parking brake to the shoe link spring supplied, I can’t see the point of supplying all the springs except one of them. The cost would have been miniscule and I am certain people would pay that little extra for those springs. Take note Wagner!

The pictures below shows the completed build of the kit and the brakes in location.

Note: at the time I had written this review I was awaiting the springs for the parking brake link to shoe. So this is not showing in the picture which sits at the front of the bar under the yellow spring. (I may update the pictures once I have put the spring on, when our beloved postal service decided to deliver it to me!

Rating: 9 out 10

Conclusion:

Would I buy them again? defiantly, why didn’t I give the marks is simple, the missing spring from the set and the fact one of the springs had a tiny bend when under pressure. This is a good value set of springs, good quality and well made. this hardware kit and I would recommend to anybody.