Rear brakes what to change

Castle nut removal. Trying to remove, any tips? Ive taken the pin out and put the wheel back on and lowered to the floor. Im jumping up and down on the breaker bar. Of course its not budging.

Any hints?

 

A 4ft length of scaffold bar will usually persuade it.

 

Torch it ,

 

The whole van yeah?

 

Take the split pins out or the wreckage of the pins.
I managed to twist a Halfords Professional 3/4" breaker bar with a bit of Laser Dinghy mast jumping on it to shift my wheel nut. The bus will try to run away with the wheel on the ground.
And then take it to a truck garage or carefully saw through the nut and split it. The nuts are cheap.

 

I realised I didn't need to take it off in the end.


Next question. Shoes and drum replaced. Adjusted so a couple of clicks off. But handbrake seems not to be working. Will it need adjusting at all?

 

It shouldn't. I guess you didn't take a pic before you put the drum back on?

 

Only difference I can see is the new show doesnt have the little square etched out of it for the metal to sit in. Maybe shows arent right? Both sides are done and I've got no handbrake.

 

Did you adjust shoes with handbrake off?

 

Yurp

 

The handbrake lever looks like it's already being pulled and you may have adjusted the shoes against it is my first thought.
Un hook the cable, drum back on and then adjust it.
When you put the cable on, the lever should have some free play.
You would generally find the rest position of the lever is much slacker than your picture, back overlapping the rearmost shoe a bit.

 

Your lever looks like it's hitting the hub. Something's not right.

 

Ok. Get it to a point where the handbrake is off and the shoes are a couple of clicks away from dragging on the drum.

Then get under the front of the bus. There will be two cables going into a bar and then into one cable. You need to tighten these two cables. Do this until they are reasonably taught. Keep checking the handbrake lever. You want 6-8 clicks on the lever.

To adjust the cables you need a socket and pliers. One to tighten the nut. The other to hold the cable.

 

And your cylinder looks like it has a leak and the spring at the top is fitted wrong. Not sure how you managed that.
And the bolt? That's a no-no.

 

Or listen to Zeds advice is the fitting is wrong.

 

The top spring should be just below the spreader bar, I think you have it a hole too high on the lever shoe. Are the shoes identical to the ones you removed? There are 3 types to chose from.

 

No they are slightly different.

I'll buy some more shoes.

 

What's wrong with the bolt?

 

I used to get caught by that, you never know what you'll find as it's so easy to transfer the whole shebang from vehicle to vehicle whatever the year model. Now I keep a set of each.
A bolt has thread and can unscrew unless you welded it to the shoe.