Drum Brake System: Description and Operation

Rear Drum Brakes
The rear drum brakes consist of:
^ Non-servo, leading-trailing shoe design
^ Taurus, Sable sedan models use a 225 mm (8.85 inch) diameter brake drum.
^ Automatic adjustment of the drum brake assemblies with an incremental adjuster that adjusts during braking whenever a wear gap is sufficient to actuate the adjuster wheel.
^ Brake adjustment occurs in forward and rearward braking.
^ Rear brake backing plate mounted to the rear wheel spindle

Brake Shoe Automatic Adjustment
The hydraulic rear drum brakes are:
^ self-adjusting and require a manual adjustment only after the rear brake shoes and linings have been replaced or when the length of the brake adjuster screw has been changed while performing some other service operation.
^ The manual adjustment is performed with the brake drum removed.


Brake Drum Mounting





The rear brake drums are assembled as follows:
^ Brake drums are attached to the rear wheel spindle by a wheel hub with pushnuts.
^ Wheel studs are located in the wheel hub for retaining the rear wheels.
^ The lug bolts and lug nuts are metric (12 mm).