Worked on my '99 CC SWB truck (aka 'Spot').
I've been accumulating brake parts since the beginning of the year when I rebuilt all the front suspension & lowered it. I had last 2 weeks of the year off to burn up vacation time @ my work. Last week was Model-A wheels & Malibu fan clutches. This week has been getting the brakes knocked out. Of course, nothing has gone as planned.
I got the pass side rear rebuilt & it was a mess. Brake shoes cracked, split, & into the rivets. Yikes. The 'star' adjuster was fully extended & the shoes had worn a nice ridge into the drum. But, w/the lowering process, I no longer had access to the star wheel as the leaf spring pack is blocking the access port (flip-kit). This required BFH persuasion to get the drum off. What a PITA. Eventually got everything off & new stuff swapped on.
I moved over to the driver side & it came apart easily. Too easily. It seems the star adjuster on this side seized up so the shoes only adjusted 'so-far' & that was it. Weird thing also noted was a lack of excessive brake dust vs the pass side. I told myself "ok.... The brake shoes only expanded so far so it makes sense". I continue disassembling things & when I removed the rear brake shoe, the entire seal portion of the wheel cylinder went w/it. The seal was destroyed. Hhmm... That explains low fluid issue noted mid-year (although weird we couldn't find any wet spots when investigating). So now I'm on the hunt for wheels cylinders. I didn't intend to replace them when planning but w/the end of the seal torn like it was it became necessary.
I did some www research to figure out WTH was going on causing the seal/boot to be torn like it was. Seems GM deemed it necessary to put some angled tabs @ each end of the wheel cylinder for some reason. Apparently this is a common cause for the seal/boot to fail from contact on the OBS Chevy trucks (?).
it won't be an issue again
The tabs are now gone & I created an access 'slot' to allow adjusting the rear shoes. I went to put things back together & the wheel cylinder would not play nice w/the brake line fitting. I jacked w/the stupid thing for 30-45mins & could not get it to thread on nicely. I tried wheel cylinder No.2 & had it going together within 10mins. The rest of reassembly went as good as you could hope for.
With the driver side together I went back to the pass side & took all the new stuff back apart so I could replace the wheel cylinder. Same issue trying to thread the fitting on this side as well. Seems the wheel cylinder had some questionable threads. The package had been taped closed so I'm not sure if it just got pummeled in transit or if someone had it before me & tweaked the threads & just returned it. Two O'Reillys later (and a good chunk of my working daylight gone) I had another wheel cylinder. Threaded together less than 10mins... Tabs trimmed off & access slot created just like the driver side & got it all reassembled.
What should have been 3-4hrs of work (that 3/4 ton sh*t is heavy) turned into an >8hrs work including the parts store runs.
Ran out of light so front end & bleeding tomorrow.....
I've been accumulating brake parts since the beginning of the year when I rebuilt all the front suspension & lowered it. I had last 2 weeks of the year off to burn up vacation time @ my work. Last week was Model-A wheels & Malibu fan clutches. This week has been getting the brakes knocked out. Of course, nothing has gone as planned.
I got the pass side rear rebuilt & it was a mess. Brake shoes cracked, split, & into the rivets. Yikes. The 'star' adjuster was fully extended & the shoes had worn a nice ridge into the drum. But, w/the lowering process, I no longer had access to the star wheel as the leaf spring pack is blocking the access port (flip-kit). This required BFH persuasion to get the drum off. What a PITA. Eventually got everything off & new stuff swapped on.
I moved over to the driver side & it came apart easily. Too easily. It seems the star adjuster on this side seized up so the shoes only adjusted 'so-far' & that was it. Weird thing also noted was a lack of excessive brake dust vs the pass side. I told myself "ok.... The brake shoes only expanded so far so it makes sense". I continue disassembling things & when I removed the rear brake shoe, the entire seal portion of the wheel cylinder went w/it. The seal was destroyed. Hhmm... That explains low fluid issue noted mid-year (although weird we couldn't find any wet spots when investigating). So now I'm on the hunt for wheels cylinders. I didn't intend to replace them when planning but w/the end of the seal torn like it was it became necessary.
I did some www research to figure out WTH was going on causing the seal/boot to be torn like it was. Seems GM deemed it necessary to put some angled tabs @ each end of the wheel cylinder for some reason. Apparently this is a common cause for the seal/boot to fail from contact on the OBS Chevy trucks (?).
it won't be an issue again
The tabs are now gone & I created an access 'slot' to allow adjusting the rear shoes. I went to put things back together & the wheel cylinder would not play nice w/the brake line fitting. I jacked w/the stupid thing for 30-45mins & could not get it to thread on nicely. I tried wheel cylinder No.2 & had it going together within 10mins. The rest of reassembly went as good as you could hope for.With the driver side together I went back to the pass side & took all the new stuff back apart so I could replace the wheel cylinder. Same issue trying to thread the fitting on this side as well. Seems the wheel cylinder had some questionable threads. The package had been taped closed so I'm not sure if it just got pummeled in transit or if someone had it before me & tweaked the threads & just returned it. Two O'Reillys later (and a good chunk of my working daylight gone) I had another wheel cylinder. Threaded together less than 10mins... Tabs trimmed off & access slot created just like the driver side & got it all reassembled.
What should have been 3-4hrs of work (that 3/4 ton sh*t is heavy) turned into an >8hrs work including the parts store runs.
Ran out of light so front end & bleeding tomorrow.....
