Hi all.

I'm in need of urgent help with my girlfriend's Punto!!! x reg 1.2 8v

I decided to have a go at replacing the old shoes. Big mistake.
I managed to get the drum off easily and disassemble the shoes fine. Assembling the new shoes wasn't too hard as I just copied the oppisite side as a guide-ie, putting the springs in the correct place etc.
Putting the drum back on was pretty tough, I presumed that it's going to be tighter as the shoes have no ware! out came a hammer and I whacked it back on. THEN I put the wheel on and decided to test the brakes out. Well I didn't get very far! Infact the wheel DOESN'T TURN AT ALL!!!

Then I tried to take the drum off and it won't budge. I've been trying to prize the god damn thing off and no luck. It's like the drum wants to come off but gets caught on something.

How can I release it and what the hell have I done wrong? I need to fix this tonight.

Can i disconnect the hand break somehow-would this help the pressure?
Could I bleed the rear brake and would that make any difference-and how!

Please help

Paul

Remove the cap from the brake fluid reservior, the way i normally get the drums off is to hit the drum lots of times with a hammer and it generally loosens it enough to gradually be able to pull it off. Did you retract the auto adjuster when you fitted the new shoes ?

It sounds like drums have got a lip around the edge where the old shoes have been wearing. It's always a good idea to attack this lip with a file or a grinder to remove it so that the drum can slide back on. You could try slackening off the handbrake cable at the lever as far as you can, don't know if that will help though.

Oh, and you can use a couple of bolts screwed into the drum retaining bolt hole things to try to draw the drum off again.