Rear Rotors

I have a 2001 4x4 GMC Sonoma and I would like to change the rear brakes. I pulled off the tires and took off the calipers but couldn't get the rotor off. It has the emegerncy brake drum that is incorportated into the rotor and the rotor just wouldn't budge. I think it is getting caught on the pad inside the drum. Is there any advice I can get on how to go about this. I was thinking that maybe if I could get the e-brake cable loose enough it would allow me to take it off, but no luck. I can do it myself for about 100 bucks and a mechanic wants about 450 to do it.

As long as your parking brake is not pulled that should not be holding the rotor on. I would go down to your local auto parts store and invest in a Haynes repair manual or whichever they carry. They have everything you will ever need to know in there.

There is a rust ridge that has built up on the drum side of the rotor.
The reason for the 450 charge is for the tool to remove the rotor.
Keep fighting with it and you will get it off there..unfortunately you may have to buy a new rotor

There is a rust ridge that has built up on the drum side of the rotor.
The reason for the 450 charge is for the tool to remove the rotor.
Keep fighting with it and you will get it off there..unfortunately you may have to buy a new rotor

What would be the best way to go about this? I was just trying to pry is off using a wonderbar. Putting the bar where the caliper mounts to, and then trying to yank it off. I also stuck two c-clamps on the roter itself then put a crowbar accross the butt end the axle and tried tighten the clamps. It would move about a half inch then we would run out of room on the axle. We also looked into loosening the brake cable, but that was impossible since it looked like the adjuster under the truck was crimped on in the factory or something. Would a bearing puller be able to attach to the rotor disc possibly work? I can rent one from autozone.

I thought I would update on what I did to get the rotors off in case a another cheap college student wants to save some cash. I did what I was told to do in by other members, I beat the piss out of them to get them off. Firstly I applied the parking brake and put a C-Clamp on the both E-Brake lever on the backs of the rotor area. Undoing the parking brake gave me plenty of slack to remove the cable/nut off the floor parking break pedal. Taking off the C-Clamps let the pads in the drum relax. Using a crowbar across the end of the axle, and two 8 inch C-Clamps from the back of the rotor to the crowbar. Tightening the clamps allowed the rotor to be forced out flush to the end of the axle. Then using anothing crowbar/wonderbar I pryed the rotor off. The clamps and crowbar fell off and the rotor was now wedged on by the horseshoe shaped drum shoes. Then just using force/crowbar I managed to get the rotor off. It took about a half hour per side this way. I'm not sure if there is an easier way or not.

Taking off the shoes I kind of damaged them slightly on the edges, but they looked pretty good (unworn). Going to Autozone and getting some rotors and pads the price tag came to $99. They didn't have any of the E-Brake shoes, but I thought that the ones I took off would be ok.

I notice that the adjuster screw was turned about 5 times making the shoes rub constantly and the brake petal only went down about half way before. I beleive this is the reason why it was so hard to get the rotor off. The shoe was hitting the rust ring that was on the inside of the drum. Hopefully by only having the adjustor turned once, instead of five the rotors will be easier to take off in the future and the shoes will not rub all the time like before (might afftect gas mileage which I was only getting about 18.5). I pulled out the adjusters as well and greased them up pretty good and put everything back together. My E-Brake petal now goes almost to the floor and going about 35mph and slamming it down stops the truck relativaly fast with a funky thud sound.

If there are any comments on my approach please comment. Also, if anyone has any reason why the factory sets the adjuster up five turns to make it a pain in the ass to take off the rotor, comment as well. I hope this will help someone in the future which is what I wished to find when I first came to the forum but had no luck. It would be helpful for people to do a follow up on what they did.