umm I have never had to grind down any parts of a drum brake setup. I have had to wiggle and bang the shoes together and wiggle them side to side and eventually they went together.
are your wheel cylinder bleeders on top? Sorry, but I have seen them installed upside down.
Did you clean all the rust off the backing plates. I have seen small lips from wear cause them to hang up. I am going to assume you replaced all the hardware. It's not necessary every brake job, but these things do rust and stop working normally. OK, picking over.
The wheel cylinder at the top is what applies the brake when you press the pedal. If you left the lines off for any length of time. or the master cylinder ran dry, you have air in your lines. The reservoir at the master cylinder has 2 chambers. one for the front and one for the rear. the rear can run dry and you still have brakes because the lines from the MC connect to a proportioning valve, which shuts off fluid to the rear if it senses a major loss of fluid, so for obvious safety reasons, you can still have partial braking. if you don't properly pressurize your rear brakes, the proportioning valve won't reset and the system will still think you have a leak and turn on the dash light. Also, your parking brake handle will cause this light to illuminate, so make sure that is not your cause. You can also have air in the Prop valve which will set the light. Here is a link to upgrading a prop valve for disc brakes, but gives a lot of info about the system and how to bleed the prop valve. Jeep XJ prop valve mod.
Back the the rear drums. the two top springs are used to return the brake shoes after application, They are very heavy, and are easily overcome by the hydraulic pressure in the wheel cylinder. The cable piece that attaches to the pin at the top and runs down to the adjuster is part of the auto adjuster system. Which functions during a brake application or the application of the parking brake. it pulls on the lever which is pressed against the adjuster wheel teeth which rotates the adjuster, pushing the bottom of the shoes out, "automatically adjusting the brakes". The brakes have to have enough wear so that when the adjuster moves back to it's resting position it can click onto another tooth.
are your wheel cylinder bleeders on top? Sorry, but I have seen them installed upside down.
Did you clean all the rust off the backing plates. I have seen small lips from wear cause them to hang up. I am going to assume you replaced all the hardware. It's not necessary every brake job, but these things do rust and stop working normally. OK, picking over.
The wheel cylinder at the top is what applies the brake when you press the pedal. If you left the lines off for any length of time. or the master cylinder ran dry, you have air in your lines. The reservoir at the master cylinder has 2 chambers. one for the front and one for the rear. the rear can run dry and you still have brakes because the lines from the MC connect to a proportioning valve, which shuts off fluid to the rear if it senses a major loss of fluid, so for obvious safety reasons, you can still have partial braking. if you don't properly pressurize your rear brakes, the proportioning valve won't reset and the system will still think you have a leak and turn on the dash light. Also, your parking brake handle will cause this light to illuminate, so make sure that is not your cause. You can also have air in the Prop valve which will set the light. Here is a link to upgrading a prop valve for disc brakes, but gives a lot of info about the system and how to bleed the prop valve. Jeep XJ prop valve mod.
Back the the rear drums. the two top springs are used to return the brake shoes after application, They are very heavy, and are easily overcome by the hydraulic pressure in the wheel cylinder. The cable piece that attaches to the pin at the top and runs down to the adjuster is part of the auto adjuster system. Which functions during a brake application or the application of the parking brake. it pulls on the lever which is pressed against the adjuster wheel teeth which rotates the adjuster, pushing the bottom of the shoes out, "automatically adjusting the brakes". The brakes have to have enough wear so that when the adjuster moves back to it's resting position it can click onto another tooth.
