I just redid the brakes last week on my '85 F-250 with 12 x 3" rear drums.
All new parts except as noted:

• Master cylinder

At the front

• Hard line from proportioning valve to left caliper
• Rebuilt Cardone calipers
• Wager severe duty pads
• Flex line both sides
• Flex line to caliper banjo bolt
• Caliper retaining bolts
• Hub bearings and seals

At the rear

• Flex line
• Flex line banjo bolt
• Hard lines from flex line to both wheels
• Wheel cylinders
• Brake hardware, springs, adjusters, etc
• Wagner Thermoquiet shoes
• Brake drums
• Parking brake cables
• Hub bearings and hub seals

The new cables are installed at the rear, but have no tension on them as I haven't installed the cable from the parking brake pedal yet.
One of the wheel cylinders was packaged wrong and I got two right ones. So I just installed a right one on the left and made the hard line to fit. I can't imagine that's an issue though.

The problem
I'm getting judder with moderate to aggressive braking. I've isolated it to the rear by clamping off the rear brakes flex line and the problem went away.
I found another thread here mentioning that the leading shoes are R & L handed. I pulled the drums and in fact I did have those on the wrong side, but switching them hasn't made any difference.
I called Wagner's tech support line and they suggested that the new drums are possibly defective. I have new ones on the way.

In the mean time I wanted to see if anyone has any further ideas. Here are photos of the left side setup. It seems all is correct, but I haven't worked on self adjusting drum brakes in about 30 years, so a sanity check would be appreciated.










In these two you can see the "striping" pattern on the shoes from the intermittent contact.





Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. A solution would be even more appreciated.

 

Your striping on the shoes is due to the shoe grinding and will go away in short time. Not unusual as aftermarket production of shoes is done quickly compared to OE.

The judder is most likely the drums, but if your getting the same manufactured drums .... we'll have to see.

 

I agree the stripes are the seating/wearing-in process. My concern is using the right-handed wheel cylinder on the left side as it will have the bleeder valve on the bottom - I think. That would mean you can't get all of the air out. However, I don't know that it would cause a judder, just soft brakes.

 

The bleeder screw is in the same relative position (height-wise) when installed on both sides.
The only difference is whether the line enters from the front or the rear, relative to the axle.

 

Interesting. I think the bleeder screw on mine is at an angle, but then mines an F150. Ok. I am apparently wrong. Again. Today.

 

Everything looks freshly painted.
Are the shoes free to move around on the plateaus of the backing plate?
Did you put a little dab of brake grease or antisieze on there?

You say the parking cable is not hooked up.
Are the shoes properly adjusted after centering?
I usually adjust new shoes for a little bit of drag, they will rub in fast enough.

 

Yeah, Never Seez Mariner's Choice on all moving surfaces

The drums slide off, but with a bit of jiggling and some effort.

 

Tom, I don't recall there being a right or left leading/trailing shoes. The leading sho is the shorter lining on any duo-servo brake system, whether it is an F-150, 250,350 or a car. The cylinders should not make any difference left to right except the angle of the inlet port.

Does your truck have the load compensating valve on the rear axle? It might be malfunctioning. The other question would be, did you have the drums turned? they could be slightly out of round, this will definitely cause what you are describing.

I can't seem to locate my 1986 chassis manual, but do have a 1991 sitting here. The rear brakes are the same so I can scan the section on the F-250/350 for you.

 

There was another thread on the forum I found where it was mentioned the small additional piece of metal spot welded near the top of the shoe should face towards the drum. When I checked mine they were facing the backing plate, swapping sides oriented them correctly.

Yes, I have that valve, but the brakes weren't doing it before the overhaul so I don't think that's it.
In fact, I cleaned up and put on the old drums and the judder is gone. So hopefully that's it and the new drums that will get here tomorrow will be good.

Thanks, it would be great to have them. Even if new drums fix the issue.
I pm'd you my email address in case you can't post pdf's in the thread.

 

Tom, I replied to your message, my fail safe option is to put them in the downloads section on my website.

 

I recently had a pair of Wagner shoes that popped off that little 'doubler' plate.
One at a time, on both sides.
Maybe I put them in wrong way round, but I never had any shudder, just ting, ting ,ting as the piece bounced around in the bottom of the drum.
I welded them back on with my MIG.

 

Tom, the first 36 pages are up on my site. Downloads are midway on the left side. The first part is general information and troubleshooting. I will work on the drum brake portion (section 06-02) tomorrow.

 

Tom, the drum brake section is on my website now.

 

Great, thanks.
But when I click on 06-02 there's nothing there to download. At least I'm not seeing it.
I got 06-00 no problem.

 

Ok, it's fixed. I thought everything was set up correctly, but had not entered the category.