My passenger side rear brake is engaged or stuck, I believe this because I tried to remove the drum and it would not come off at all and I tried beating it off with a rubber mallet. This led me to believe the brake on that side is engaged, but I could be wrong and there is probably something I'm missing because it's been a long while since I have done drum brakes. So what could be the problem here? And how do I go about fixing it?

 

Can you spin the drum? will it budge at all? if yes to the first one but no the the second. try a bigger hammer. a rubber mallet won't do it. if it will come out a little you will need to knock out the rubber plug on the backing plate and adjust the shoes in.

 

Drum wont spin at all, it wiggles a little but nothing else. It will spin about a quarter of a turn each way with all my strength after that nothing.

 

Depends on what it's stuck on.

Sometimes it's stuck on the shoes, usually because at some point in its life somebody let the shoes go to metal and they gouged out the drum, and now the shoe surface is WAY lower than it used to be, leaving a "lip" arpund the drum. In those cases, adjusting the shoes down is the cure.

In other cases it's rusted to the hub. When that happens there's not much to do other than to break it loose. Best NOT to use a hammer, since you can easily damage other things; instead, use a large 3-jaw puller.

Drums are CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. Don't worry about destroying it, just do away with it and get another pair. (since you always do the same things equally to both sides of brakes)

 

Okay I'll check it out, I'm not worried about damaging the drum but didn't want to damage anything else.

 

Alot of the time when i get vehicles that have this problem its a matter of cutting your losses and using a prybar and hammer, im usually careful enough not to knock a cooling fin off the drum or damage it at all. try grabing the e-brake and thrusting it back and forth, if you suspect the e-brake is not siezed then its the shoes attaching catching on the lip problem. If your unable to adjust them back then Keep at it with the hammer and prybay and they will come off, but you will probably need some shoes and a hardware kit after... its cheap enough

once off check out what the problem is and if your cylinder is locked open. might need one of those too

 

Okay so the this is something I completely forgot to mention that the car has new brakes on the rear from the previous owner I bought the car from. And it does have the receipts to prove it, so are the brakes out of adjustment then?

 

Who knows?

If it has a new carbutretor, or a new distributor, or new rockers, or new window tracks, are THEY "out of adjustment"?

Who knows?

Same deal.

Adjust em down, in case the drums are caught on the shoes. If that doesn't get it, use a 3-jaw puller.

Age of the parts doesn't too much enter into the picture.

 

You say the drum only turns about 1/4 turn, no one has asked this yet, but are both rear wheels off the ground? If not and the vehicle is in park that's all it will turn regardless of what is happening with the shoes or drums. After going through this nearly every time I have changed brakes on most drum vehicles, I suspect drum is rusted to the axle. You should try backing off the shoes first, if it still won't budge, then clean the rust off the lip of the axle that protrudes from the drum and try a few firm whacks with a good size hammer(front of the drum works better than the side) A 3 jaw puller has less chance of damage, but still will need some coaxing from a hammer. A little WD40 never hurts either(around axle and a few shots in each stud hole)

 

Rearend was lifted off the ground.

 

Did you try to back off the shoes? It can be tricky if the adjuster is working properly, impossible if it's rusted. You can pull the adjuster plugs and use a thin screwdriver to push the adjuster lever away from the notched wheel you adjust shoes with so it will turn to loosen, if memory serves me correct, you would have to bump the wheel up to loosen the shoes on passenger side.Easy way to tell is it should not go that way before you push out the adjuster lever. you will hear it click if you are tightening shoes.

 

Another possiblity that had not been touched on yet, is the E brake cable is stuck. They do get rusted and stick. Try grabbing cable leading to drum and wiggle it around, flexing it on its length, that will sometimes free the cable and release shoes.

 

Okay I was going to do that but the weather has been horrible here lately I haven't been able to work on the car lately. But hopefully sometime in the next week I may be able to.

 

Is the parking brake a possibility too? And if so what will the parking brake lever feel like?

 

Slim possiblity but it happens, especially if you set it after it not being used for a while. happens alot in automatics, not so much in standards. The brake handle may not have tension for a short distance of pull. Still leaning towards tight shoes or rusted drum to the axle though. Check them in that order.

 

I'm gonna go with tight shoes because I know the drum is not rusted to the axle.

 

This is pretty much what you have in there, The brake adjuster is the lever I spoke of that needs to be pushed away from the notched wheel in the pic. This is a drivers side , so you have a mirror image of this on passenger, because threads on adjuster are reverse from one side to the other

 

Okay thanks, hopefully soon I can get on this. The brake adjuster can be accessed on the backing plate right?

 

Absolutely, there are two rubber plugs in the backing plate, the one towards the rear should access the lever and wheel. Push handle of adjuster tool, or screwdriver up to loosen while holding lever away from adjuster wheel.

 

Okay that's what I thought, but I was looking when I first found out it was stuck and couldn't see much on the backing plate. But the car is so low it's kinda hard to see the backing plate.

 

LOL not gonna get any easier, you may need to get your head in there to see what you're doing to push that lever out. Good luck man we all have been there.

 

Haha yeah I didn't expect it to, problem is no matter what I really don't like being under the car too long.

 

The EASIEST and the most simple way to remove the drum IF you can't back off
the shoe adjuster wheel is to just get around the back of the drum backing plate
and (using a hammer and chisel or dremel with a cut-off wheel) cut/snap off
the TWO hold down spring pin heads.

This will release the entire brake shoe assembly from the backing plate and
the drum will pull right off!
You can pick up a couple new brake shoe spring pins at any auto store for
two bucks!

NO hacking up the drum or backing plate either!!!!!!!!!!!!