not sure on my rear brakes

[the excuse]

i have ajusted the drum brakes on my rear acxle so that they are just barely touching. when back is on jacks and i put it in drive the driver's left wheel spins a lot faster. when i start pressing the brake the passenger side wheel stops and the driver side speeds up. the back will not lock up until i press really hard. by this time i am assuming the front would have been locked up and screaching if i was to be driving it. i tried ajusting the drivers side envough so that they both stop at the same time and i couldnt get it to work. i just put new wheel cylenders in too. the brake lines are blee too.

 

[pauly383]

What does it do on solid ground ? Sometimes when you have low gears with open or posi diffs, one will rotate a bit more until it stops if your on jackstands with brakes applied. Sounds like the axles is just overcoming the brake shoes. On solid ground and warm it should work fine as the wheel wont overcome the brakes on solid ground. The back brakes do less work than fronts also /forums/images/graemlins/k5.gif

 

[1-ton]

If you have Anti Lock Braking (ABS) on the rear brakes, then they will not want to come to a complete stop when in the air on jack stands. This is because the ABS thinks the brakes are locking up, and thus the ABS releases them as the brakes are coming to a full stop.

The way I adjust my brakes is to adjust them as tight as they will go against the drums, and then back them off 10 clicks on the adjuster. Adjusting them as tight as they will go properly aligns and centers the shoe to the shape of the drum.

 

[the excuse]

kind of scared what it will do on the ground i live on a big hill... no it does not have abs. the gears are 3.73, the problem is the brakes arent strong enough to stop the wheels when it is in drive.

 

[pauly383]

Bleed them again, takes several times sometime. Then you could adjust the brakes so it is VERY hard to turn by hand, or put e-brake on a little , back up and apply brakes to self adjust. The factory self adjusters never work right and the application of e-brake helps hold the shoes out so adjusters can move more. /forums/images/graemlins/k5.gif

 

[spearchucker]

If you're getting a firm pedal and you're sure that all the air is bled out then I say it's time for a test drive. It's hard to test the brakes out on jack stands. If you're worried about the hill you're on, you could always carefully put a small c-clamp or vise grips on the rubber hose just above the rear axle housing to cut off the fluid flow to the rear brakes. Or if you have a functional e-brake then that'd work too.