Have been chasing this problem. The guide plate was not in the correct position and when fixing that, noticed that the shoes are not seating on the anchor pin. They front and rear shoe is about 1/8" away from seating on the pin which doesn't seem normal. Maybe the wheel cylinder is the wrong one or the rods coming out of the wheel cylinder are too long? This rear end is in a 56 Plymouth Suburban and the front drum brakes are stock, they are working fine. A small aftermarket booster was installed by a previous owner with a dual master cylinder; could the booster be holding hydraulic pressure to the rear? Removed the linkage from the brake pedal and it was not applying pressure with the motor not running and applying vacuum to the booster. Thoughts appreciated!
You can test that theory by opening the brake bleeder and seeing if the springs pull the shoes back in. Before that, slide under the car and take a look at the travel of the pushrod from the pedal to the piston in the master cylinder and make sure that when the pedal is in the up position you have a few RCH clearance between the push rod and the piston. Just a few thousandths is all you need but when you reach up and grab the pedal arm and work it you should see movement in the pushrod before it contacts the piston. Then does the pedal have a return spring, The weight of the pedal may be pushing the pushrod against the piston enough to cover the return port. That is something that too many of us forget that we need or think we don't need. Last, if fluid pressure for one reason or another isn't the issue, someone may have put the wrong return springs on it. Meaning that They may have used springs for larger brakes.
There was no pressure at the wheel cylinder when the bleeder screw was opened. there is a return spring on the brake pedal and there is some play at the pedal before the rod off the pedal starts engaging the booster. Opened up the slots on the shoe so the shoe now contacts the anchor pin. There are self adjusters on the rear brakes only; seems like the rear brakes were doing most of the braking.
Emergency brake cable hung up? If so equipped, some of these cars had the e-brake on the transmission.
If you have a cross bar between your shoes for parking brake, then remove and see if that fixes it. Common for parking brake not to release all the way.
Had the emergency brake problem on another vehicle at one time, this one is not causing a problem. Opening up the slot in the shoe to get the shoes to contact the anchor pin seems to have helped. Not sure if they are the wrong shoes or if the wheel cyl isn't the correct unit, causing the shoes to not seat on the anchor pin.
This was a life hack for a partially stuck e-brake cable. We slotted the equalizer bar with a hacksaw.
not wrong shoes problem is shoes made in wrong country, i had the same problem when i did the 8-3/4 in a dart last year, used a small die grinder to make shoes fit backing plate, compare to orignal shoes and you will see how far off they are
Thanks ^^^^^That's pretty sad that foreign replacement parts are that inferior! The gap was at least 1/8".
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