Brakes Alive

[shaker]

Hi folks, this is my first post on the site, hope I can get some of your expertise. I put new shoes, pads, springs and drums on the back of my 90 f-150. The problem is I couldn't hardly get the the drums back over the pads when reinstalling everything them. They were so tight I had to rap them back on. They will not turn freely and I can't hardly push down on the parking brake. Everything looks fine, but I must hve goofed somewhere for them to be this tight. I also put in a new parking brake cable to the right rear side (It was the ford replacement part and went on fine). Any help would be most appreciative in this area. Thanks, folks!

[99firebird]

Sounds like you need to back off the auto adjuster on the bottom of the two shoe assemblies. When your brake shoes wear and decrease in pad thickness the adjuster pushes the shoes out to keep them within a minimum distance from the drum. When you put new shoes on the adjuster need to be repositioned. You need to screw in the adjuster until the drum slides on without binding up. Hopefully you didn't do damage to the shoes by forcing the drum on. They usually have a good selection of automotive manuals in your local library if you don't have one at home already.