rear drum shoes break

[1996camry]

I have 96 Toyota Corolla and it need rear brake shoes replaced.

I took the brake shoes apart but I heard the brake shoes has the long and short. is that right? how can you tell which one is short or long? when you install the brake shoes, how do you know which short or long to install on the right or left of rear brakes?

[Eye8Pussies]

the brake shoes should be the same size...

[1996camry]

does the brake shoes rear install one up and one down? i bough brake shoes from Autozone but when i check, it doesn't match with the old brake shoes on the rear car...the car bought from the dealer (used)...and the brake shoes wear off... is there way you can match it up when take apart? do measure length??

[Unco]

Originally Posted by Eye8Pussies

the brake shoes should be the same size...

no. while the metal part of the shoes are probably the same size, you'll find that usually, with rear drum brakes, the brake lining itself sits on a different portion of the metal shoe depending on whether it's the front or the back shoe.

how do you find out which one is the 'long' one? pull the old one out and compare it to the new one! put them side to side and compare how far up or down the shoe the lining sits and put the new shoes on in the same way as the old ones were.

on a side note, next time you might want to post corolla questions in the corolla section of the forum.

[Unco]

Originally Posted by 1996camry

does the brake shoes rear install one up and one down? i bough brake shoes from Autozone but when i check, it doesn't match with the old brake shoes on the rear car...the car bought from the dealer (used)...and the brake shoes wear off... is there way you can match it up when take apart? do measure length??

i don't follow you. you bought a car from a dealer with no brakes??? i might be able to help you, try explaining it to me like i was a 10 year old.

[keba]

I have done this before.Usually the brake shoes only go in one way to support the right brake hardware,so it should be quite difficult to get them wrong.One of the shoes should have and extra pin in it for the retracting spring and such.

carquest has a $8 package of all brake hardware (springs pins clips and such).FYI

[alltracman78]

The shoes are the same size.

The friction material on the shoes should be different lengths.
The rear shoe should have more [longer] material.

It does matter if you put them on backwards, which IIRC is possible.

They will look alot alike, but shouldn't be identical.

And for the record you're better off getting aftermarket parts from somewhere like NAPA vs somewhere like autocrap or advanced.....