hetkind

Gentlemen and Ladies,

I need to rewash my hair again to get all the black grit and dust out...

TLJ (The lovely Jill, my wife and owner/operator of the jeep) was complaining about a squeak from the rear wheel of the 08 JK Sahara at 45k miles. The left was done first, rear pads were severly worn and the pad backing plate almost totally rusted away, and even with the star wheel fully backed off, the rotor had to be driven off with a hammer due to the excessive rust on the portion of the parking drum unswept by the brake. It cleaned up with a air powered die grinder and a small sanding drum.

The right side was worse, star wheel was stuck, had to use a puller to get the drum/rotor off and again, severe rust on the inside of the drum blocking easly removal. It took much sanding/grinding for the drum to clean up...

Aside from buying new cast iron drums, and pulling/cleaning yearly, do we have vendor who sells stainless steel rear drums/rotors? I pulled the retaining pins through the backing plate and put the jeep back together with the parking brake wired together. I need to go back in and finish the job and stainless steel rotors/drums for the back would solve Jeep's little design issue...

Howard

TINMAN080

Never heard of them....

Rule18

Nope, me either. If you come across them, let us know where...

hetkind

Thanks, I guess my solution is to either pull the rear rotor/drums every other year for cleanings OR replace every time they start looking rusty. So replace on rust and time and not on wear in snow country.

Personally I think this problem could have easily been designed out.

Howard

ronjenx

No need to replace. Just remove/inspect/clean when it starts to show signs of not working properly.
My JK is 4 years old now, and I haven't had any problems with the e-brake drums. We get plenty of snow/salt around here.

hetkind

My box of brake parts came in and I swapped out the LR Rotor/drum, e-brake shoes and ebrake hardware on the left rear corner. Not the most fun of brake jobs, and it would have been nice to design the system so that standard brake spring pliers would work better.

A couple of things I noticed...the hole stamped in the backing place did NOT line up with the star wheel adjustor, so future adjustment/removal might be difficult. While I got the disk brake pads changed out in mere minutes, it took me a few hours of fiddling on the brake shoes, mainly for the set of inner/outer return springs by the actuator.

I just think that Jeep could have done a better job on the ENTIRE e-brake design/manufacture.

BTW, the new rotor, e-brake shoes and hardware kit with shipping was under $100 from Rock Auto, while my local suppliers were having trouble getting the hardware kit.

Howard

ronjenx

I have found it easier and faster to adjust the e-brakes with the drum s off.

hetkind

One of the reasons you have the adjustment is to back off the shoes to get the drums off when they rust up and form a lip:-)

I damaged the brake hardware by using a puller to get the drum off since the adjustor didn't line up and a significant lip had formed from rust.

Howard

ronjenx

Yes, I know all about backing them off to remove the drum. Perhaps the advantage to adjusting the e-brakes with the drums off is it allows cleaning of the drums and parts so it never becomes difficult to remove the drums.

TINMAN080

Stainless versus cast iron- cast iron is soft, which is a requirement for a long life smooth operating brake system. Not only do the shoes grip the iron well, it is self-cleaning and smoothing. Stainless steel ''galls'' and in the long run wouldn't give long term smooth operation.