Need some help adjusting rear drums and parking brake on my 72 Riv. Everything is new from the parking brake cables to the drums. I followed the service manual and extended the adjusters until the drums dragged on the shoes and then backed them off until no more drag was felt/heard. I then pushed in the parking brake 3 clicks and ended up adjusting the parking brake until it the full length of the threads and still couldnt get the wheels to cease rear or fwd movement. What am i doing wrong? The only way i can tell to solve this would be to adjust the brake adjusters until i got the parking brake to work but that will inevitably cause the rear drums to drag on the shoes.
Adjust them a little tighter. You may need to do several careful test drives to let the shoes settle and work into the drums. As I understand it the surfaces need to get warmed up to begin to mate up properly. Im no brake expert but Im sure this would help. This is what I would do.
First take the E-Brake out of the equation, back off the adjustment nut so the cable is slack. NOW, adjust the starwheel for the shoes so the shoes slightly rub the drums. You can do this with the drums on or off. Take it for a ride, see how the pedal feels, it should feel firm, pedal feel comes from the rear shoes adjusted properly. After you've driven it a bit and are happy with the performance of the brakes, THEN adjust the E-brake cable.
The chassis manual for the a-body cars states that with the e-brake cables real loose, push the e-brake pedal to the 3rd click then tighten the cable so that it snug. release the e-brake and there should be enough slack in the cables so that there is no effect on the brake shoes.
