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Rear drums are good shape and new shoes. I can spoon up the rear shoes and will have a full peddle for a week or two, then right back to the long peddle travel and stopping mostly, or it feels like on the front.
Adjusters are free and lubricated. I back up and stop at a min of twice a day.
Awesome truck, just the brakes sux. Rotors warp very easily.
I just installed a set from eBay and was really impressed with their quality. My truck is 9300lbs empty and sees 100-200 miles a day. No issues here. I replaced my from calipers with Napa Eclipse calipers at the same time. You're sure you're adjusters are working right aren't they? I've seen the tabs bent and not holding the adjusters from spinning backwards. That'll cause long pedal travel too
I've also seen an adjuster come loose and make it feel like a warped rotor getting a vibration when stopping. It'll come loose and jam under one side of the shoe and still have resistance to adjust it but it's not actually pushing the shoes. The shoes will shake in the drum and cause a vibration. Have you had the drums off and looked at them since you replaced the shoes?
Mike, they seem to be. I am going to pull the hub on this other rear end I have and look to make sure.
They are supposed to adjust under braking in reverse. That looks to be the way they are set up to work, pull down on the back shoe to move the adjuster in the direction to widen the shoes.
For what it's worth the past few days i've felt my rear brakes fading and the majority of my front brakes doing the work. I just completey rebuilt the rear with new lines, shoes, drums etc in april or so, around 2-3k ago and I suspected the RABS unit. I went to double check adjustment on the rear drums and on the driverside i could see the adjuster not attached through the inspection hole.
So i pulled the wheels off and put it back on but i noticed that the auto adjuster cable is too long. It barely keeps any pressure on the adjuster when you route it behind the backing plate spring, if you route it over it it's fine. Tying a knot in it to shorten it some is too much. So i routed it over top of the spring and its definitely in place now.
I was pulling my tilt trailer with a car today and went to stop quickly and i could hear the front tires slipping a little, i readjusted the trailer brake controller but i could tell there were no working rear brakes with a loaded trailer.
Something must be out of place. Remove both drums, don't take anything off, and take general and detail pictures of both sides (corresponding angles/distances/etc), and then study them. Eventually you'll find something different between the two. But because of the "Chinese puzzle" nature of all the parts, it's impossible to speculate on what would be out of place. The answer is visual.
I just rebuilt my rear brakes and made sure it would adjust before putting the drum back on. I pulled the parking brake lever to activate the adjuster. I found that most the parts in the new kit didn't work and I had to reuse old with the new to get it working. DISCLAIMER! I think my rear brakes are over adjusted now because they get pretty warm when I drive. I can smell them and when I put my hand near them I can feel they are hot. My post rebuild adjustment procedure was to adjust the pads out until the drum would just slide over them and call it good. I know you should use the star wheel adjuster and adjust until there is a slight drag, I couldn't do this with a fresh LS. So I opted for the method I described. Back to your regular programming!
