• Home
• Motorcycles
• Honda CX and GL
• Cleaning the rear drum brake and shoes

Cleaning the rear drum brake and shoes - Honda CX500, GL500, GL650, CX650C

Before using this site please read the site disclaimer. Also please note that any links provided may be part of an affiliate programme (viz. eBay, Amazon) which helps support the site as I will earn a commission when visitors make a qualifying purchase.

This particular CX500 had a nasty case of the rear brake pedal making a grinding noise with an accompanying shudder whenever it was used, so we took the drum brake out to take a look at what was going on. These shoes had about 1,500km on them. In this how-to we didn't remove the shoes - we will update with a how-to for when we do remove the shoes to clean under them as well.

With the rear wheel removed, we can take a closer look at the brake drum cover:



It should just lift away, if it didn't already accidentally fall out while you were removing the wheel:



Taking a closer look at the shoes, they don't seem to be wearing evenly:



There was a reasonable amount of brake dust after only 1,500km:







Time for the trusty brake cleaner:



A quick blast for the drum:



Nice and clean:



Drum surface, now clean:



A quick spray for the backs of the shoes and the areas you can see without removing the shoes:





Reassembled, tested and the grinding noise/feeling when braking is gone. This won't be the cause every time, but it giving the insides a quick clean really seems to have made a difference in this case.