Just replaced the rear drum shoes on my 340. Unfortunately, when I put the drum back on, it was a lot tighter than previous and quite a tight squeeze. They did eventually go on though. Once I had the wheel back on, a quick spin revealed they are binding quite badly.

Any suggestions on the installation of new shoes? Am I missing something that isn't in the typically vague Haynes manual?

Cheers

Matt

theres a self adjuster just give it a lil knock with a screw driver till the drum fits on niceley, ill try find a pic and point out the adjuster.
hope this help abit

^^ what he said. As the old shoes have worn, the adjuster has compensated for the wear. Just needs to be re-set.

Hi, we have a 340 1.4 1991 and we tried to change the drum shoes yesterday but could not see how best to get the auto drum adjuster back to start....The new ones would not fit on so we put the old ones back on....Help. I saw a knurled wheel but it would not turn despite some WD40. Does something else need to happen? I'd like to have taken the adjuster off but that looked problematic? Help please, my son want to take the 340 around Europe for a month and he is NOT going unless we change those brakes....

Sorry, I missed this one somehow. I can't remember the exact details but it is possible to reset the self-adjuster to its smallest setting (so you can get the drum back on) by using a screw-driver between the little toothed wheel and the thing it catches against. Again my memory is vague but the little toothed wheel (shown below) is not meant to turn but the funny shaped thing on the far right does.



The most common problem is the lever on the left gets rusted to the base-plate at the large pivot shown causing the brakes to bind all the time. If you suspect this is happening, it is worth the extra trouble of taking it all apart and freeing it up. The Haynes has all the info you will need. The only other thing is that getting the drum back on is often impeded by the fact that the drum can get a ridge on its outer edge due to wear. You can just grind this off with a Dremel tool quite easily, but I guess a file would do it, too, with more effort! Hope some of this helps and sorry its so late.