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How To Fix A Leak In The Rear Right Brake Drum Of 1990 Suburban 4x4 Half Ton?

Photobucket was the preferred host but people have had trouble with them since they make you pay for exceeding bandwidth or something along those lines.
 
Easiest to take the drums off to adjust via the star wheel as mentioned. You can adjust from the backing plate, but normally have to punch out or remove a plug to access it, and more pain than just removing the drum.
 
rampage said:
Photobucket was the preferred host but people have had trouble with them since they make you pay for exceeding bandwidth or something along those lines.
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It appears that if you have pictures on photobucket, and you give people your username there, if they then google "photobucket X (username)" it will still link direct to that user. Not sure how else to do it, searching by username on photobucket doesn't seem to work.
 
dyeager535 said:
Easiest to take the drums off to adjust via the star wheel as mentioned. You can adjust from the backing plate, but normally have to punch out or remove a plug to access it, and more pain than just removing the drum.
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If the drums are seized, removing them might not be trivial.
 
campfire said:
If the drums are seized, removing them might not be trivial.
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UPDATE a few ,minutes ago after i had took the brake drum off, which was hard to take off, i pushedon the e brake pedal and instead of being stuck it went straight down before the incident had happened
 
blackandgold51 said:
UPDATE a few ,minutes ago after i had took the brake drum off, which was hard to take off, i pushedon the e brake pedal and instead of being stuck it went straight down before the incident had happened
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You aren't supposed to use the e-brake with no drum to hold the components in place.

If the drum was hard to get off, the shoe was almost certainly in contact with the drum at all times (minimal contact is normal, but shouldn't be hard to remove) and thus the e-brake wouldn't allow movement of the shoe(s). Even if everything is working properly, IF the drum has a large lip in it from wear, that can sometimes prevent easy removal. But with fluid leaking, the pads are swollen and making things worse regardless.

I remember my first (but not only) experience with a contaminated rear drum shoe. I might have gotten one or two "normal" stops out of the car when just starting out driving for the day, but on the second or third brake apply, that wheel would instantly lock up. At the time I figured oil would make the brakes work worse, but as mentioned, the contaminated pads swell up, especially as they get hot, and that leads to the problem experienced.
 
I've had brake shoe linings that got wet with gear oil or brake fluid come unbonded from the metal shoe part!..that certainly was not fun..the wheel locked up and I had to take the drum off with a sledge hammer on the side of the road and get the chunks out so it could roll again..and it had only front brakes going home,the wheel cylinder pistons popped out with no linings left on the shoes..:eek:

The rear shoes in my '82 K2500 were drenched with gear lube on the right side ,when I got the truck--they rear brakes alternated between being extremely "grabby" and locking up the wheels with a feather touch,to being almost completely in-effective when you went to stop..then I noticed the oil oozing out onto the tire..

Weird thing was once I started driving the truck,the gear oil stopped leaking (and I did keep an eye on the fluid level in the diff)--I assumed the axle seal dried up from sitting and once I started driving it ,it softened up and stopped leaking..

The rear shoes were the riveted variety,not bonded,and were still nice and thick as new ones--being cheap I decided to take them off and soaked them overnight in gasoline and then sprayed the crap out of them with brake cleaner...they are still on it ,working fine,(other than being grabby first stop in the morning,which every GM truck I've had does--) and that was done in 2003!..
I would not recommend trying to salvage soaked bonded type brake shoes though,they will come un-glued..
I decided to wash mine off after I found out relined shoes for the 3/4 ton cost almost $50 + the core charge..and I didn't have $50..
 
dyeager535 said:
You aren't supposed to use the e-brake with no drum to hold the components in place.

If the drum was hard to get off, the shoe was almost certainly in contact with the drum at all times (minimal contact is normal, but shouldn't be hard to remove) and thus the e-brake wouldn't allow movement of the shoe(s). Even if everything is working properly, IF the drum has a large lip in it from wear, that can sometimes prevent easy removal. But with fluid leaking, the pads are swollen and making things worse regardless.

I remember my first (but not only) experience with a contaminated rear drum shoe. I might have gotten one or two "normal" stops out of the car when just starting out driving for the day, but on the second or third brake apply, that wheel would instantly lock up. At the time I figured oil would make the brakes work worse, but as mentioned, the contaminated pads swell up, especially as they get hot, and that leads to the problem experienced.
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So Basically its the brake pads.









 
Hard to tell from the pics.

Regardless, fix leaks, replace shoes (disk brakes use pads), clean drum/backing plate materials with brake clean or similar, reassemble. Keep your hands dry/free of oil/grease/fluids so as not to re-contaminate the drum or pads. Make sure you know how they go back together, drums are kind of a bear if you haven' done them before, there are youtube videos that give tips on how to make it a bit easier.

What I like to do when I'm messing with the drums, which is very infrequently, is that since I have them put together right as they sit, I jack the whole rear up, take off both wheels and drums, and just make sure I copy the assembly like the other side, exactly. When I got my 14SF, both rear shoes were on one side of the axle, and the fronts were on the other. Parts had been ground/cut/bent to make everything go together wrong. None of that is necessary if it's put together correctly.

GM might have changed the parts around a tiny bit on the 10 bolts over time, just make sure you aren't missing any parts on disassembly or reassembly.
 
And remember, there’s a primary and secondary shoe on each side. Shorter shoe (primary shoe) goes towards the front, longer shoe (secondary shoe) goes towards the rear. And instead of using the other side as an example of how things go back together you can always take some pics of the side you’re working on before disassembly, assuming it was put together correctly to begin with. It’ll save you trips from walking from side to side to side to side to side ... :D
 
I "copied" the previous mechanics error once,when replacing rear brake shoes--whoever did it put the short shoe facing rearwards on one side--the side I used to guide me when I put the new shoes on the other side..:doah:..glad you mentioned that,I've seen experienced mechanics goof that up too!..
 
rampage said:
you can always take some pics of the side you’re working on before disassembly, assuming it was put together correctly to begin with. It’ll save you trips from walking from side to side to side to side to side ... :D
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Thanks for rubbing it in, Mr high falootin' technology. :)

But I do encourage you to make sure they are put together the right way, first.
 
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