A hands-on owner who rehabbed a car found the drum brakes use fixed rather than floating shoe heels, meaning each drum must be ground round to match its shoes and shoes cannot be interchanged, making a proper reline fiddly and shudder-prone. The same commenter counted roughly 80 parts that add complexity without improving braking, and calls these early postwar cars difficult to work on.
Fixed-heel drum brake design
Mercedes-Benz 220 (W187) · mechanical