03 ds brake drum/shoe replacement adj

[Pinebarrensxj]

Hello. I have a 03 ds im replacing the rear drums and shoes on. There is a bolt on the lower backside of the backing plate 12mm head with a square drive center. What does this do? It seems like it loosens the whole brake shoe assembly allowing it to slide toward and aft. Is it supposed to be loose or cinched down right? What is the adjustment procedure for this. Thanks in advance!!

[rowlands57]

I just did the brakes on my new-to-me '02 DS recently and never touched that bolt. I believe it's part of the actuator mechanism at the lower portion of the brakes. The only things I removed or touched were the pins and clips holding the shoes to the backing plate and the adjuster 'star' at the bottom near the actuator.

I ran that adjuster all the way in to get the shoes on and then adjusted it out to get the brakes barely dragging on the drum before closing it all up. It reminded me of the very old days working on cars before disc brakes became common.

[Pinebarrensxj]

I only loosened that bolt due to the fact that the drums had a massive lip and I could not get them off. With this setup unlike an automotive bendix drum assembly you can not go through the back to access the star wheel to loosen the shoes

[rowlands57]

Yeah. When adjusting it was a series of adjust push the drum on, check, remove and keep adjusting until I was happy with the drag on the drum. It was about 3 clicks of the adjuster each time.