I’d had my beater Civic for like four years. In my ownership up to that point, I hadn’t been able to pull the rear drums due to the lip that the shoes had worn in, and no way to back them off that I could see.
So out of sight out of mind, and rear brake condition was unknown with over 260k on the clock.
I had a four day work thing out in Harrisburg, PA, all had gone well and I was heading home to NH. A bit east of town on some of those rolling hills out there I applied the brakes and felt a vibration in the pedal, then a big pulsation, then nasty metallic noises and the pedal right to the floor.
I knew right away what had happened, brake shoes had worn out and popped a wheel cylinder. I still had a little bit of brake right at the bottom of the travel and a full tank of gas. I didn’t even stop to check it out, why bother? Nothing I could do about it.
Pressed on, kept big following distances, engine braked as necessary. Hit Scranton right as rush hour was starting to get going but luckily missed the worst of it.
Finally stopped and gassed up in Carmel, NY, peeked underneath and saw the backing plate covered in brake fluid, as suspected.
Continued on and made it home no problem.
I cut the drum off the next day, called around for parts locally but rockauto was way cheaper. Put the order in with them but still needed the car to get around. C clamped the wheel cylinder together and bled it. Used the cut out center of the brake drum as a spacer so I could mount the wheel. Ran it like that for a week, few hundred miles or so, and did the brakes the following weekend.
Lots of limp home stories from over the years but that’s my most recent one (April 2018) and my long distance record.
