Ironmike4x4

Ok... my brakes were getting to the point where they werent exactly stopping well so I manually adjusted them then did the e-brake lever stopping while in reverse. Now my brakes are getting extremely hot. Another issue is my park brake light has not been coming on, possible bulb maybe, but yet its not comign on. I have not yet been able to mess around with it or anything and now am driving another vehicle to get this fixed. My question is what did I do wrong and how do I de-adjust my parking brakes? I hope I dont have to go through the shoes and take them off. Any help is appreciated.

Gangus2006

DO NOT TOUCH BRAKES after any kind of driving. There is a lot of friction needed to stop your truck, and friction=heat! I touched the front rotora once after testing them on my dad's taco....O-U-C-H! And rear drums are worst, since theyre not open to air to be cooled...

Ironmike4x4

Yes I do know not to touch the brakes when hot and do know the product of braking is converted into heat energy. What I am saying is they were so hot I could both smell them burning and saw smoke coming from the wheels. I checked today and the drums were extremely hard to take off and had to do some prying to get them off. Come to find out the shoes were tightened too much because they wore a "lip" inside the drums (not a good thing). But still I am curious to set the park brakes and drum shoes by using the e-brakes. At work (Chevrolet) our vehicles are made to be adjusted just by going in reverse and applying solid pressure to the brakes a few times for the self-adjusters to work.

TechWrench

The lip you found is a normal byproduct of drum brake wear. Because the shoes are not a wide as the inside of the drum, they will only wear away the drum where they actually contact it. The lip is the part of the drum that the shoes don't wear down. This is why many people have difficulty removing drums on older vehicles. It sounds like you adjusted the brakes too far, and they are not completely releasing. Or you have a rust problem and they are not returning to the relaxed position. In either case, you will have to back off on the adjustment some. I have read some of the posts which recommend the parking brake method of adjusting the rear drum brakes, and IMHO, this method can lead to just the problem you seem to have. The self adjusting levers on drum brakes do work well, if they are in good shape and not rusted. But on many older vehicles, they do not function properly. I have always found that using a brake adjusting tool properly is still the best way to get it right.