Tip for removing / replacing brake shoes

I had to put a pair of new brake shoes onto the rear brake plate of my 650SS restoration. With both shoes and the expander cam in place, I could get the spring nearest to the pivots on but there was no way I could stretch the spring nearest the expander cam anywhere near enough to get it fitted over the locating hooks on the brake shoes. If I removed the expander cam, the shoes came together close enough to fit the spring, but then I couldn't spread the shoes against the spring pressure far enough to refit the expander. A search amongst my boxes of assorted stuff I rarely use, and I came up with a pair of old coil spring compressors, meant for compressing car suspension springs. I turned the hooks on one of them around and found that they fitted inside the brake shoes. I used that to expand the brake shoes far enough to refit the expander cam.