Rear Passenger side brake locking!

[Matt]

I just got in my 406 for a drive and the first time i hit the brakes my left hand rear drum locked up!

I unlocked it by reversing a little, but subsequently every time i brake with any pressure it knocks and locks up again...luckily theres a garage at the end of the road so I've'ev left it with them as i have no tools at this location and it seemed serious enough not to mess around with, i'm lucky that this didnt happen when i was going faster or it could have been carnage!

I havent owned the car long enough to have a look at the brakes...needless to say they were working fine when i bought it.

The guy at the garage thinks it could be the braking material from the shoe has come loose and is jamming in the drum when braking due to the way reversing alleviates it..has this incident happened to anyone else?

[jasper5]

The guy at the garage is probably right!

I've had this problem many times over the years on all sorts of cars.

[Matt]

Cheers Jasper,

Its been a while since i've owned a car with drums on the back. so this is a fairly common issue with drums?

[jasper5]

Not that common to be fair, but I probably see more because it's my job.

You can get the problem on rear drums in the disc like the 406 with discs on the back, Volvos, BMW etc.

Most common failures are with Clios, the old ZX, Peugeot 106, etc.

What happens is the material corrodes and lifts off the shoe.

You were lucky the drum didn't jam up solid, that happens more often than your situation.

[Matt]

The garage have fixed it, as you said, the material came off the shoes. I could have easily fixed this myself but there's no way I would have got it over to my place and I'm happy it didn't happen on the motorway!

[jasper5]

Glad you got it sorted