BMG

MK2 Focus. Rear left drum starting ticking on light application the brake about a year ago, pretty much out of the blue. Took the entire thing apart cleaned it up, reset it all and still the same. On light application of the brake, tick, tick, tick - in freq with what ever speed I am doing. On hard braking it doesn't tick.. Switched the drums around about 6 months ago and the ticking stopped immediately and there was no ticking on the right, therefore ruling out a dodgy drum.. About 4 weeks ago the bloody ticking started again on the left. Took of the drum yesterday to check the hand brake adjustment, 2mm spacing according to Haynes manual and it was all good. If I lift the handbrake before lightly braking the ticking does not occur. I'm stumped as to what the problem is. I'm keen to not just throw unnecessary parts at the problem but it sounds like I might have to. I think next step is changing the shoes - which look to be in really good nick with lots of meat on them.

Anyone got any ideas as to what it could be? It's driving me up the wall!

My ideas
* cylinder pushing unevenly
* Worn contact points on the backing plate - although both sides look about the same
* Maybe just a sh*te set of shoes on the left

Cheers

stevieturbo

And are the shoes original, or not ?

Wear on the drums ?

All springs/retainers in place ok so shoes cannot move about ? Likewise any backing plate they sit against ?

BMG

I'm the third owner so I don't know the history of the shoes but I would say they are not the original ones as it's got 70k miles on it. * edit * by original I suppose you mean OEM. I'm not sure on that one TBH.

Springs/retainers seem to be ok. I did notice that the rear left ones didnt seem as hard to compress in order to install them. Might be worth a crack changing those however I would of thought that the ticking would have continued when the drums were swapped if the retainer was the issue.

In an odd way it seems that the noise started as the weather started getting warming....I'm sure its just a coincidence though