Rear Rotor /Parking brake removal

[Greg Markus]

I have a 01 Silverado, extended cab with 4X4. At 46000 mi. the rear brake pads are shot and the rotors need replaced. Removing the brakes and the hardware was simple but I can NOT get the rotors off the rear parking brake shoes. The shoes seem to be held to the rear plate at one point. At that point the rotor seems to be coming off the shoes but the other side of the shoes seems to stay in the drum section of the rotor, so what happens is a "binding" that will not allow the rotor to move. Alldata talks about a removal tool but I don't believe this will stop the binding. Any ideas to simplify the rotor(s) removal will be appreciated.
Thanks,
GM

[Vortec327]

Not to be dumb but did you check to see if there are there rotor retaining washers left on any of the wheel studs??

[Greg Markus]

That would be dumb.....these are the first thing I removed.

[jeverett]

make sure the e-brake pedal is not pressed, not even the slightest amount...when ui changeud mine, they just slid right off.....?

[tmeath]

I'm here looking for an answer to my own parking brake problem and saw your note. The rear disks on my suburban have a lip on their back side. That is what I suspect your parking brake shoes are catching on. My Haynes Repair Manual suggests that you loosen the nut on the parking brake equalizer to provide some slack in the cables. If you have not seen it yet, the equalizer is where the parking brake cable splits into two. Even when I loosen mine entirely, it can still require some wrestling to get the disk off, but I find that twisting it back and forth will free it. You get the same problem when putting it back on.

[vnotaro]

Would it hurt to grind that lip down a little?

[jeverett]

It would be better to take it to a brake lathe and let them lathe it down smooth as to keep the rotor in balance. It woudlnt hurt to get the rotors turned since your taking them off anyway, its fairly cheap, less than $10 a rotor, and will make a difference in brake life.

[walbern1]

Just had the same problems last week on my buddies 2000 Z71. The parling brake wears such a deep groove in the drum in hat that you have to work to get the rotor off. If you can pull it out far enough you can get a screwdriver in and back off the shoe adjuster as far as it will go and aside from holding your tongue just right you'll have to just work at it, it will come. On his the passenger side slid right off but it took almost 45 minutes to get the driver side off. Our only problem was we couldn't find anyone in town that could machine the drum part of the rotor so we ended up just replacing the whole thing.

[Greg Markus]

Folk, thanks for all the assistance....I have been beating on this with a hammer so the rotor definately needs to be replace...
Thanks...
GM

[Butch66]

When I replaced mine I had to beat the heck out of it but they eventually came off.

[jeverett]

Funny...both of mine just slid right off?? I guess I"m lucky