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

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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.