February 9, 200422 yr I started on changing the struts and brakes on my 99 Forester this weekend. I did the rear first and along with the other weekend chores I got the rear pretty much done. It sure is a lot easier in a shop with a lift and a serious compressor, but what the heck at least this is CA so nothing was rusted on. Since there is the rule that something stupid has to go wrong with any mechanical job I got mine this weekend. When I torqued up my wheels the wheel would nearly freeze up and scrape when you turned it. I was sure I must have done something wrong as I have not done a set of drum brakes in nearly 15 years. After removing one wheel and drum again I found that the drum had a different lip to seal against the backing plate. This lip exactly interfered with the lip on the backing plate. Either it is from another Subaru model or the manufaturing specs were wrong. My error in testing was just to fit the drum over the old brake shoes and make sure it slipped over the hub. I used the old drums that were in pretty good shape, but they have been turned before. It was OK on the test run except that my brake adjustment is now off from playing with it trying to find the problem.
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