Did the first brake job today on the rear brakes since I've owned the car (3.5 years) and discovered the brake shoes were barely worn. The oddest thing I discovered however was that the parking brake lever was installed onto the brake line backwards, resulting in the lever not resting in the actuator rod.

Just curious what kind of strange effects this has been having over all this time. I did notice after the car felt like it stopped a bit easier.

 

If memory serves correctly (& thats a BIG if...), for drum brakes,
activating the parking brake also serves to inject some star wheel
adjustment. So if the p-b was backwards, this may have been a
significant effect.

I personally don't trust this, and periodically just adjust the
rear brakes up a bit. A good gauge seems to be when the p-b
needs lots of lever travel to engage.

I would be interested in how others experience/handle rear
brake adjustment.

 

While driving in reverse aggressively pump the brake pedal while coming to a stop. This is to be done with the brakes cold.

Doing it with hot drums will cause them to over adjust and then drag while cold.

RBob.