Loud Rear Brake - Need Help

[stevenrankin]

Drum brakes

Oh lord I remember replacing shoes, trimming shoes to fit, cutting drums, and all the adjustments needed in cars just to make things right. I don't know if shoe material "hardened" over time or just got glazed from heat sometimes from shoes dragging from being adjusted too tight?

Anyway, I don't miss the antilock BMW brakes. I just got rid of the ATE disc calipers on my 78RS and now have much better Brembos. Now if I could get the gosh darned rear disc brake on the 78 RS to work as well as the old technology drum brake on my 84 R80RT, I would be real happy. Changing from a drum rear brake to disc on the airheads is in my mind the biggest nightmare and waste of effort.

I got near 200K miles on my drum system, The disc system now has a new disc, pads, been bled a million times and still does not work as well as the drum did at 180K miles. St.

 

[taran1900]

BMW's original anti-lock brakes - the single front disk on an R75/6.

Me and my first bike.

 

[41107]

So, I picked up a new set of brake shoes and finally got around to installing them. I didn't have a lot of time today, but I did take the bike for a short 5-10 ride and the rear brake is no longer loud. It does seem like the brake shoes were too old. Which poses a big question. How long to brake shoes last (not miles ridden, but just age of them being installed). It appears that 10-15 years are too old. I didn't think the brake shoe lining would harden that much over time to cause such a loud squeal.

When replacing the brake shoes was there a lot of brake dust in the drum?If so there was your squeal.