Hi,

I have spent the last 40 minutes trying to fit my rear brake shoes, I have given up in a strop. Should it be that hard, every time I get close it springs out. Are there any tips or advice to help me?

Thanks in advance
Will

Tea, persistence, swearing, tea, persistence, beer, persistence, whiskey, persistence, get someone else to do it.
They are difficult. make sure they are pushed fully home on their adjusters.

make sure bottom spring is behind its keep plate

Maybe some help here?

https://www.fiatforum.com/500-classic/448116-rear-brake-shoe-drum-problem.html?448116=#post4246900

Ah man horrible job
I found I had to wedge a flathead screwdriver between the shoe and the drum and lever it into place. It worked though!

So far this car has been a joy to work on, the simple engineering has been brilliant, I cannot recollect too many jobs apart from the odd seized nut that have really tried my patience, but the brakes which are a serviceable item arrgggg. Thanks for your support, I will have another go tomorrow after I have been to bargain booze for some beer and whisky as prescribed.

It is a very long time since I've been near a classic 500, but have memories of small Fiats, mostly frustrating and painful memories regarding the brake shoes. Biggest problem I remember is the shoes wont fit around the hub easily.

If not too difficult, consider removing the hub. Then fit the shoes, the refit the hub. If that works on yours. Made life much easier on the Panda recently. Hope that helps.

Will, first of all, make sure that the handbrake is fully OFF--if it helps, remove the handbrake cable from the linkage. Initially, forget the springs! Fit the shoes over the 'upstand' that operates the 'automatic' adjusters, and into the slot on the hydraulic cylinder (at the top) and the locating seat (at the bottom). With a large screwdriver, or similar, make sure that the shoes are fully pushed IN. If your brakes have the holding pin/spring arrangement (126 brakes) fit these now so that the shoe is held on. Fit a spring into 1 of the shoes and then use a long THIN screwdriver--in behind the other end of the spring , with the tip of the screwdriver in the hole that the spring fits into on the other shoe and gently lever the spring into the hole. The spring might just hold on the edge of the hole in which case you gently remove the screwdriver and tap the spring into the hole. Repeat operation on the other spring exactly the same way---but remember, the bottom spring goes BEHIND the 'spring plate' (the little bit sticking up where the bottom of the brake shoes sit)--so make sure that it IS behind this plate prior to fitting the spring into the 2nd shoe. Expand the shoes (with that large screwdriver) to the point that you can just get the drum back on. Refit hand-brake cable, adjusting as require to enable you to do so, and the hand-brake lever comes up about 3 clicks. The hand-brake cable can be adjust on both sides of the car--2 17mm nuts on threaded cable adjuster where cable is located in rear-suspension swing-arm. If this fails, have another beer and phone me!! :bang:

Others here are far more experienced at this than me but I did manage to change front and rear shoes recently (getting them bled correctly was another issue! )

I found it helped to have a G clamp with a thin piece of wood to protect the shoe. That allowed me to put one shoe one (with springs) and use the clamp to hold it in place so that I could use two hands to pull the second shoe into place. Without it the first shoe just kept popping off the spigot.

I also found it worked best to get the bottom of the second shoe into place first and with gentle tapping get it aligned with the first shoe; brute force (and two hands) then made it possible to pull the top of the shoe far enough back to hook it into the cylinder (at an angle) and from there it was fairly easy to pop it onto the spigot.

My attempts at this and resulting posts here also raised the old issue of new springs which tend to be fractionally shorter (and stronger?) than the originals which also makes it harder to get the shoes on and to get the adjustment right. I don't know if you are using new or old springs (but I resorted to stretching the new springs slightly to match the originals).

On front brakes you can fit the two springs to the the shoes first and then with the pads facing you locate the top and bottom of the shoes and then rotate them through 90 deg and locate them onto the pegs. Now you just need a 3rd hand (assistant) to lever the bottom spring up and over the tab which holds it into place.
This approach is made harder on the rear because you have the added complexity of the Hand brake linkage and the Hubs.
I think for the rear I initially fit the two shoes without springs but i don't properly locate the bottom of the shoes. At the top the shoes locate onto the cylinder pistons which move in and out, and at the bottom they locate behind a plate with two rivets.
Initially I leave bottom lugs of the shoes in front of the plate and fit the spring at the top where you have to stretch it with a pair of thin nosed pliers. then fit the bottom spring behind the tab, but it is easier to fit because the shoes are not as far apart as they should be. With the springs fitted you can lever the bottom of the shoes out one at a time with a long screwdriver against the hub flange to move them out and tuck the bottom lug into place behind the plate with two rivets. I hope I have remembered this correctly.