bradleyheathhays
Member
'96 XJ here and I've just replaced everything you can on my rear drum brakes, and now that they're done the red 'BRAKE' dash light is constantly on. I have sort of an idea as to why but no idea how to go about fixing it. This happened on both sides btw... When I had finished replacing everything and was fitting the new drum around the new pads neither drum on either side would slide on. Somehow the shoes were too far apart by just a hair. Looking back, I now know what happened to cause this, just wish I had realized it then. When I began installing the new parts the first thing I put in on both sides was the new wheel cylinder and attached the brake lines. I think when I attached the brake lines it kept some pressure in the cylinder and they wouldn't let the top of the brake shoes retract in as much as they should've. To correct this I should've cracked the bleeder valve and left it open until everything was fit back together.
So what does my dumb a$$ do...is I take the adjuster wheels back out (where the bottom of the brake shoes rest) and dremel grind both ends down some so the shoes can come together a bit more. This was enough for the drums to go on and voila! job done. Yep, not so much.
How do I go about adjusting things so my dash brake light goes off? Only thing I know to do is to get new adjuster wheels and redo the build steps again with the brake fluid bleeder valve cracked open, close it all up, bleed the lines and see if that gets the light off.
One thing I should mention that could be a factor here is that when I took off both drums there was the same piece broken in each one...the odd cable part that hooks onto the thick top anchor point where the top two shoe springs attach, does a 90 deg turn around another piece to the side then continues down to hook into the odd J looking piece close to the bottom adjustment wheel. I think this part has something to do with the emergency brake but I'm not entirely sure. The green line in pic below shows where each of these pieces/cables were broken. The pic isn't of my brakes, just one I pulled off the net.
So what does my dumb a$$ do...is I take the adjuster wheels back out (where the bottom of the brake shoes rest) and dremel grind both ends down some so the shoes can come together a bit more. This was enough for the drums to go on and voila! job done. Yep, not so much.
How do I go about adjusting things so my dash brake light goes off? Only thing I know to do is to get new adjuster wheels and redo the build steps again with the brake fluid bleeder valve cracked open, close it all up, bleed the lines and see if that gets the light off.
One thing I should mention that could be a factor here is that when I took off both drums there was the same piece broken in each one...the odd cable part that hooks onto the thick top anchor point where the top two shoe springs attach, does a 90 deg turn around another piece to the side then continues down to hook into the odd J looking piece close to the bottom adjustment wheel. I think this part has something to do with the emergency brake but I'm not entirely sure. The green line in pic below shows where each of these pieces/cables were broken. The pic isn't of my brakes, just one I pulled off the net.
