82 Caddy strange drum brake goings on..

I'm almost stumped. Not quite, but almost. I'd like to preface this with = saying I have an 81 wotj 640K miles on it, and this 400K 82 was mine eight = or ten years ago and I recently got her back. I've done rear brake jobs on= both of them more than once in the past, and I'm certainly not infallible = but this ain't my first rodeo.

So, I put new brake cables, drums, shoes, hardware and wheel cylinder on th= e rear of the 82 Caddy. It had an e-brake that was out of adjustment room,= and the adjusting wedge in the rear brakes was all the way down and the dr= ums were obviously badly worn, though the shoes were not worn out.

My first problem is the hand brake has to be adjusted all the way down, the= adjusting nuts, to tighten up well. Normally I adjust so they are tight at= three clicks up, I can't get these tight at three clicks up at all.

My second problem is the brake pedal is low, the master cylinder is new and= well bled with a pressure bleeder. I believe it is related to the parking = brake adjusting strangeness.

I've measured the ID of the drums and they are 199.75mm or so. I've eyeball= ed the shoes, and a 2nd set I bought locally, and they are "pretty damn clo= se" to each other, though I believe the 2nd set has a quarter or half MM mo= re pad material.

The wheel cylinders are TRW's that I'm pretty sure I've used before, they a= ll bled out fine.

What is going on here? Near as I can tell there is excessive clearance betw= een the shoe linings and the drum. I've visually compared the cables onlin= e and they look to be right, as was the part number on the packaging but it= 's almost like they are too long, or there is excessive clearance between t= he shoes and drum. The auto-adjuster wedge dropped half way right off the b= at, I manually snugged them up and it didn't help much. I don't believe it'= s the drums, I don't think it's the shoes but I'm not willing to say it 100= %, I can't see how the wheel cylinders would do this as they extend quite f= ar and sort of float on a spring between the cups, I guess the parking brak= e cables could be too long but they are Coife and correct far as I can tell= , there just seems to be too much clearance between the drums and the shoes= . Not even counting the low pedal, the parking brake really ought to adjust= snug with everything new at three clicks up or so, not adjusted full tight= and handle pulled ALL the way up. My next step is to measure the brake cables, though I found a range of list= ed lengths for the Caddy. Next is order some Febi shoes, I think what I ha= ve on there are Meyle. Next is replace the damn backing plate although I d= on't see any inappropriate wear, final step is a disk brake conversion. The only other clue I can offer is a very low at rest/up position of the br= ake pedal, but I don't believe this is a hydraulic issue since they do in f= act auto-adjust, and the parking brake cannot be adjusted satisfactorily.

Thoughts?

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Rex Johnston
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