full floater woes - truck won't move

[FlatBlackBurb]

okay so having completed the swap of a '77 14bolt full floater with a "govbomb" into my '87 suburban, i shifted into park and the truck doesnt move anywhere. i press the gas and it goes forward barely and as soon as i let off it goes back to where it was. when i was putting the axle in I remember there was only one side that rolled freely, the passenger side drum was locked like the parking brake was on or something. isnt that impossible though to have the parking brake cable on when they're not even attatched to the parking brake cable? any ideas?

 

[tacoma]

Try adjusting the brake, sound like you have a stuck side there.

 

[scrappyk5]

depending on how long the axle sat, drum might be stuck to brakepad

 

[gone huntin]

The 14bff I put in my '90 Suburban came from under a '74 K20. It had been sitting for over 15 years on flats in the mud. The drums absolutely refused to move, I had to take off backing plate and drum together and then beat the snot out of 'em to get them apart. The shoe material was stuck to the drums and ripped loose from the shoes metal frame. I bought brand new take off 1 ton brakes w/drums from a guy that bought a bunch of military surplus 14 bolts and was swapping them to disc. I got everything for a long wheel base ten ($100).

 

[4X4HIGH]

okay so having completed the swap of a '77 14bolt full floater with a "govbomb" into my '87 suburban, i shifted into park and the truck doesnt move anywhere. i press the gas and it goes forward barely and as soon as i let off it goes back to where it was. when i was putting the axle in I remember there was only one side that rolled freely, the passenger side drum was locked like the parking brake was on or something. isnt that impossible though to have the parking brake cable on when they're not even attatched to the parking brake cable? any ideas?

The last i knew when the trans is in park the vehicle won't move.

Seriously though, if the axle sat around for a long time the brakes are probably froozen to the drum(s). It could also be that the brakes are so bad there are grooves in the drums along with being froozen and you'll have to make magic to get the drum to move or come off.

 

[FlatBlackBurb]

oh great... more work. oh well thats what birthdays are for! gonna spend all day out there tomorrow. its in the worst place too pretty much in a pile of mulch if i could only get it on pavement so i could jack it up properly. o well ill tell ya how it goes thanks for the advice guy

 

[Hogback Fabrication]

If you have to replace all of your drum brake stuff, you may want to consider swapping to discs in the rear.

Its not much more expensive than the drum stuff.

 

[dbreid]

oh great... more work. oh well thats what birthdays are for! gonna spend all day out there tomorrow. its in the worst place too pretty much in a pile of mulch if i could only get it on pavement so i could jack it up properly. o well ill tell ya how it goes thanks for the advice guy

How close is it to pavement? Maybe pull the rear driveshaft and use front wheel drive to drag it a bit closer or to a better spot? If one side spins, then the only real damage you'd do is to flat drag a tire. If it is mulch, might just slide?

Just a thought.

 

[FlatBlackBurb]

yah im not worried about a tire theyre just old crappy ones that came with the axle, thats a good idea to drag it with the front wheel drive but to figure out a way to do it without the driveshaft coming out and atf going everywhere.

thats what i thought should happen... i thought the tire with the less resistance should spin before the other side... but niether tire wants to spin... maybe they already locked? would it be a good idea to give it some gas until a tire breaks loose and spins? i dont want to put too much pressure on my tranny though with the tires not wanting to move that's not good. and isnt there a way to adjust the brake shoes location with a screw in the back of the drum?

 

[lectric80]

yah im not worried about a tire theyre just old crappy ones that came with the axle, thats a good idea to drag it with the front wheel drive but to figure out a way to do it without the driveshaft coming out and atf going everywhere.

thats what i thought should happen... i thought the tire with the less resistance should spin before the other side... but niether tire wants to spin... maybe they already locked? would it be a good idea to give it some gas until a tire breaks loose and spins? i dont want to put too much pressure on my tranny though with the tires not wanting to move that's not good. and isnt there a way to adjust the brake shoes location with a screw in the back of the drum?

You can back the adjuster off, but if the shoes are hanging up against the drum, it is unlikely to help. About the only safe way is going to be to pull the drum and force the shoes back, but it is not going to be easy to get off. It is very likely that the drum will be damaged by removing it, because you are going to have to use a BFH.

You can try rocking it a bit back and forth, I just wouldn't do it too much because of the added strain on the trans. Sometimes they will just break loose with a few rocks, sometimes you have no choice but to tear into it.

 

[Jagged]

A very large gear puller works well for removing stuck drums. Just make sure you keep a couple lug nuts on (and loose) to keep the drum from thwacking you.

 

[gone huntin]

A very large gear puller works well for removing stuck drums. Just make sure you keep a couple lug nuts on (and loose) to keep the drum from thwacking you.

He's working on a 14bff, that won't work. It would on a 10/12/14sf though.

 

[4X4HIGH]

IIRC the gov-lock doesn't "lock" until there is a 100rpm difference between both tires in which case leads me to believe this axle doesn't have a gov-loc since you can't get either axle to rotate easily. Either that or it has already grenaded and might be your problem.

 

[kennyw]

i shifted into park and the truck doesnt move anywhere. i press the gas and it goes forward barely and as soon as i let off it goes back to where it was.

IIRC the gov-lock doesn't "lock" until there is a 100rpm difference between both tires

Which fits what he is explaining very well... it would only take a split second for there to be a noticable RPM difference if one brake drum is stuck. Which would lurch the truck forward briefly until it locked.

However, none of this should be happening if he shifted the truck into PARK

 

[ZukiJohn]

THROW ALL THAT OLD BRAKE CRAP AWAY and get disc's way easy and work much better!!!!

 

[4X4HIGH]

Which fits what he is explaining very well... it would only take a split second for there to be a noticable RPM difference if one brake drum is stuck. Which would lurch the truck forward briefly until it locked.

However, none of this should be happening if he shifted the truck into PARK

i thought the tire with the less resistance should spin before the other side... but niether tire wants to spin... maybe they already locked?

You must have missed the part about neither tire wanting to move. There must be a 100rpm difference in tire speed for the gov-lock to "lock"

 

[kennyw]

He didn't say if he was in the rig and felt they didn't want to spin, or if someone was watching... it could be both brakes have now seized up too... Either way, he did say the brakes didn't turn on at least one side. Best thing to do is fix the known problems first before moving on to further diagnose the issue.

 

[lectric80]

You must have missed the part about neither tire wanting to move. There must be a 100rpm difference in tire speed for the gov-lock to "lock"

I can attest to the 100 RPM wheels spin difference in the gov-lock. It takes a lot of wheel spin before it locks in, I know from the snow last year.

 

[FlatBlackBurb]

here's my plan of action for tomorrow:

the tires are really flat and the ground is really soft so i dont know if that has anything to do with them not wanting to spin. so what im gonna do is try and jack them up so both tires are off the ground and then see what happens and see if i can manually spin the free-spinning tire. if not it's time for a BFH

 

[73redblaze]

well both tires spun when we pushed the axle to the truck and when i spun them without tires the spun just fine. will your rear driveline spin if its taken off? cuz the axle worked fine when we were installing it. also the parking brake may be to tight, back it off some.