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new rear drum brakes getting hot on a one ton truck

Posted By: Hemi_Joel

new rear drum brakes getting hot on a one ton truck - 01/20/15 04:12 PM

Background info: I just swapped a dana 80 dually rear end out of a 1997 ram 3500 into my 93 Dodge D350 to replace the old Dana 70. THe old rear end had 12" drums, the new has 13" drums.
I put in new drums, shoes, wheel cylinders, adjusters, all springs and hardware, and E brake cables. Bled the brakes and the pedal feels good.

Took it for a 120 mile drive last night, and after a while the brakes would vibrate/pulsate upon application of the pedal. I tried stopping with the parking brake to verify if it was the rear brakes doing the shaking, and it was.
When I got home, I pulled into the shop, and the drums were so hot I could smell them. I pulled the wheels and rotated the drums and felt or heard zero shoe to drum contact. I verified that the Ebake was fully releasing, and backed off the E brake cable adjustment, and backed off the brake adjusters about 1 turn each.
Drove it 15 miles to work this morning, and when I slowed down to get off the highway and turn into the parking lot, it shook. I felt the drums, and the left one was hot, the right one was cold.
Maybe I need to back off the adjuster a little more, but it seems strange that it is getting hot when there was no apparent shoe/drum contact in the shop, plus the adjuster backed off some from that point. The cool drum on the right side gives me hope.
Does anyone have any ideas of why this is happening, or had anything like that happen before? Could air in the brake line do that? If the wheel cylinder is a different size, could that have an effect? Is the fluid not returning to the master quick enough for some reason, causing the brakes to drag, but then be fully released by the time I get it jacked up?
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks, Joel
Posted By: RapidRobert

Re: new rear drum brakes getting hot on a one ton truck - 01/20/15 05:21 PM

I would do a good visual on both assys for anything that dont look right cuz the pulsating tells me sumpin ain't right in the mechanical assy. If no luck, pull a drum & have a helper press the pedal enough so the shoes move out a bit & let off so you can see if the assy is retracting OK, dont let him push far enough that the wheel cyl pistons come apart. See what you see/holler back
Posted By: poorboy

Re: new rear drum brakes getting hot on a one ton truck - 01/21/15 04:23 AM

Is it possible the shoes are dragging against the edge of the shoe to the back (or front) side of the drum? Maybe the bottom edge of the drum is not cut square and the shoe is dragging until it wears off the corner of the shoe? Are the shoes seated correctly against the backing plate? Are the blacking plate bolts tight? Are the shoes sitting against the top post correctly? The lip of the brake drum is not touching the backing plate anywhere? I'm really thinking something isn't seated or have proper clearance.

Then there is always the old stand by, you replaced a lot of stuff, was the rear brake hose one of the things you replaced? The hoses can break down inside and restrict fluid flow upon brake release. Gene
Posted By: Hemi_Joel

Re: new rear drum brakes getting hot on a one ton truck - 01/21/15 10:41 PM

Solved! I went to re-bleed the brakes, and instead of draining into and old dirty jar of brake fluid, I used a clean jar and fluid. Right away I noticed that the fluid coming out of the bleeder looked milky. It must have had a lot of moisture in it. So I sucked the fluid out of the master with a syringe, and flushed it all out of the lines. Bled them out and it works fine! Thanks for all the replies.
Posted By: RapidRobert

Re: new rear drum brakes getting hot on a one ton truck - 01/21/15 11:20 PM

was the chattering from ABS or air or?
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