bmwe21.net forums

Apart from the obvious main dealer & Wally Nesch, who else supplies brake shoes for a 320/6?

ECP & GSF are coming up ziltch though the website says to phone as they may have them anyway.

http://www.bmwe21.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5185

lots of places in that list.

my preferred supplier is www.mister-auto.co.uk

Good stuff - just ordered a set from Mister Auto £26 delivery on Friday.

AllGermanParts wanted £32 + delivery, W & N the same (delivery £12). W & N also do a fitting kit with all the springs.

The dealer wanted to charge £32 per brake shoe & said I need 4. I said I was expecting £35 something for a set of 4. They were talking £200+ even though 4 x £32 +vat = £154 ??? I checked the BMW Classic site & that did state 'you need 4'. That's got to be a mistake

Checked in ETK, they go by the segment (half) so you need 4 of those indeed. Expensive indeed, but they will last for ages again I guess. The cylinders are still ok? Usually these start leaking...

I need the brake shoes because the cylinder has leaked all over - the shoes are quite literally sodden.

The shoes I've ordered are ATE - they should last out my ownership of the car

FYI - the cylinder was only £12 from ECP, available to collect the next day. Good stuff.

I meant to update this thread a while back but got distracted with the other car.

I fitted the new wheel cylinder &, after a bit of work, got both adjusters moving. All going well, I went to fit the new shoes & couldn't get the drum over them (and yes, I did wind back the adjusters). I had to file a bit off each end of the shoe mounts before the drum would even go on. It's still a tight fit - I can just rotate the wheel by hand. I took the car for a trip round the block to see if the shoes just needed to centralise but the wheel is still binding. There are no untoward noises or signs of distress when driving but I believe the wheel should move fairly freely. Even though the handbrake is backed right off on both wheels it still starts to bite after only 3 or 4 clicks.

I intend to remove the shoes & file the mounts down to give more clearance. At the moment it looks like quite a bit will have to come off before the adjusters will be needed to take up the slack.

Has anybody come across this before?

Did you check the cable adjustments where the cables connect to the handbrake lever as well? Just remove the rubber boot.

Jeroen wrote:Did you check the cable adjustments where the cables connect to the handbrake lever as well? Just remove the rubber boot.

First thing I did before I even jacked the car up. They are currently backed off as far as they will go. I've no idea how long the cables have been on the car but they don't appear seized.

I compared the old & new shoes in case I'd been given the wrong ones (maybe E30's) but they looked exactly the same. The drum slides over the shoes ok but just as it is about to 'hit home' you can feel it start to jam against the shoes. The drum doesn't look too worn but even if it was that would increase the clearance.

The shoes also appear to be square on the mountings & there doesn't appear to be anything else to cause the problem, e.g. the pistons in the new cylinder are fully retracted. Which is a thought - could the new cylinder be too long? EuroCarParts listed it for an E21 (I always say it's an '82 build to avoid any confusion with an E30).

Looking at brake parts on ireland engineering I noticed there are two different sizes of cylinders: 19 and 22mm.

http://www.iemotorsport.com/bmw/E21-brake-kits.html

You have to confirm with them, but from the probuct name is sounds like the 22 is for some 2002, whilst the 19 mm is for the 320. Doesn't say if it's for a 320/6 or 320/4 though.

Just checked - the ECP one is 19mm.

Could it be the shoes are sitting too close to the backplate & hitting the wear ridge on the inner side of the drum?

Do you have a photo?

I just re-installed mine. Put them on the wrong way round first (swapped left and right side) so the handbrake lever was facing outwards - then I was not able to fit the drum. Switched sides and the drum went on easy...

My first time doing this so no expert!!

It's a bit cold & wet for a photo at the moment (though I'm sure it's warmer than Oslo ) but I'll get a photo asap.

I put the shoes on the same way as the ones that were on (& the same as the other side) but in my experience of previous work on the car this doesn't mean anything However, it is a valid point so it's something I'll check.

FWIW, the drum goes over the shoes easily until the last 5 - 10 mm when it requires a bit of a shove to get it to seat on the hub. I know there are variances in production tolerances & we are talking about original parts that went out of production 3 decades ago so some degree of inaccuracy may have crept in.

Fingers crossed for this weekend

BTW E21Noob, I didn't get into my town centre this Xmas but we always used to get a big Xmas fir tree from Norway in thanks for aid in WW2. It's North Shields on the River Tyne. We always got lots of Norwegian shoppers in when the Oslo-Bergen ferry used to run & we still get Weegy fishing boats though not as many as when I was a kid.
Skal

Haha its been pretty miserable over here lately. Lots of snow, then rain, then freezing cold, then rain, now mild and sunny here though - a reminder spring is only a few months of

Hope you figure it out soon.

I didn't know about that tree in North Shields eventhough thats were my mums family is from. She grew up nearer to N'castle. Plenty of trips on those ferries when I was a kid - we used to spend summers in Whitley bay.

Cheers

Dan