Reassembling my 11 inch front power drums on my 69 R/T. Am putting new brake shoes on and have opened the brakes system at the brake hose (rebuilt the front end). The drum on the drivers side feels good (shoe barely dragging on drum; didn't have to expand the adjuster), but the passengers side drum fits VERY tight. I can get it on barely, but can't turn it once in place at all (didn't put the outside wheel bearing in as I was scared I may not get the drum back off if it seated too far). I have not bled the system yet (was next step)... the star adjuster is not expanded at all (it's at its minimal length) and the wheel cylinder is fully compressed (the shoes are all the way up against the top center post so the shoe diameter can't get any "smaller" to buy more room for the drum. What's the trick here? Picture attached in case I messed assembly up (pretty confident i didn't).

TIA

go ahead and put the bearing in and see if it will rotate. if you can get the drum on, then it will come off even if the bearing has been installed. i'm thinking the drum is just a little cocked and the bearing will straighten it up. let us know if this works or not.

put the outer bearing in and torqued it down to seat everything fully. then backed it off a 1/2 turn. i can turn the drum now, but it is tight. need to use 2 hands to turn it...can't do with 1 hand. the passenger side is about twice the effort to turn as the drivers. hard to quantify the effort...40 pounds of effort to turn??? my forearms would definitely be burning if i turned it for a minute or 2. i didn't have the drums turned as they looked good. when turning the drum there is similar effort throughout the rotation.

think this sounds too tight?

I would tighten up the other side so they both match up effort and drive it a bit.

see how the brakes feel and then see if the hubs are super hot.

2 hands to turn might be a bit much. Normally I spin them as hard as I can and let go.
It should not move more than 1/2 a turn more due to momentum.

if they stop dead when I let go, I back it off a bit.

but seeing as how you have no more to back off, as I said, I would see how much drag it really is, and it may just be so little it burns off.

Back in the day, we used to ARC the shoes to fit the drum diameter. (fancy AAmco machine to sand the shoes down). you may need to use different brand shoes or have someone ARC yours.
Do not let them get hot, or you will need new drums as well.
Re- reading your post, if you didnt turm the drum, two things can be wrong, one is a rust ridge on the outer edge...sand or file off the rust completely.
the other thing, sometimes the drums are not machined all the way to the corner and the shoes bind when they are installed.

Looking at the pic, the spring loaded hold down on the shoe on the left looks to be at an angle,not straight. Make sure the shoe is sitting squarely against the backing plate. The shoe could be out over the flat "pads"it should sit on.There should be three of them for it to sit on,top middle and bottom. Also make sure that these pads aren't grooved from 40 plus years of old shoes rubbing slots into them. If they are they may be holding the new shoes out too far.

Try chamfering the top and bottem of the shoes so they fit in the drum better. May be all it needs.

I think your latter point was spot on. turned the drums and reassembled. now with the shoes at their smallest diameter there is just a little drag....if i spin it hard the drum will turn about 1/2 a turn after release. I adjusted up the drivers side to match. Now i just need to fire the fresh 440 and take it for a drive.

Thanks for all the help guys.

When I did my '69, I found that you can order all the self-adjusting parts for a '70 if you want to go with self adjusters.