Parking Brake Adjustment Help Please

59 CJ. Stock parking brake assembly.

I’ve read the Jeep service manual and Moses Ludel’s repair guide. I’ve installed new shoes. The manual says adjust shoes using the shoe adjusting screws until the shoes are snug. To me, that means adjust until brakes stop the drum from moving. Then back off screws 7 notches. Reassemble all linkages, etc.

I’ve done this. While the drum turns freely, I get a lot of rubbing noise from my drum while driving.

In order to reduce the noise I basically need to back the screws off completely. That results in the e brake essentially not providing enough friction to retain the Jeep from rolling, even after adjusting the cable completely. ‍♂️

Is this normal…..until the new shoes conform to the drum?

 

Drum might be warped, but yes they will make some noise until they get seated.

 

Make sure you are getting full travel from the actuator arm. For me the pull cable is on the far hole of the arm.
I've seen the shoes formed shallow and not match the drum well. I sanded a bit off each end of the shoe until it had a good amount of contact across the length of the shoe.

 

Back when I worked auto parts, we had a machine to grind the brake shoes to fit the new or newly turned drums. This
was before asbestos became unhealthy. The shoes fit the drums and there was no wear-in required.

 

We used to call this “camming” the brake shoes. Back in the ‘70s, I used to use one of those machines that drum sanded the shoes to fit the brake drum. It made a big difference on stopping power.
-Donny