I was un-sure on how to change the rear brake shoes on my truck, Ive done a lot of things from build engines, from every kind of maintenance you could think of. So I knew I could tackle this, and eveyone I talked to said it was hard and should just pay a shop to do it.
This was so easy I decided to do a write up on it and thought it would help some of you that had hesitations
a 2008 Sliverado with 80k miles on it
this is on the driver side,
the tools needed: flat head screwdriver, needlenose pliers, vise-grips, brake clean.
here are the steps I did

I do need to say that I am NOT a mechanic and I am just posting this as a helpful tip

1st disconnect the e-brake cables under the driver side on the frame rail

to get the drum off you have two screw holes that you have to use a bolt to put in to push off the "hat" I used a exhaust clamp I cut in half


Heres what you start with


use needlenose pliers to take off top spring


then take off the clip the the spring connects to


then you pull on one of the shoes to take the ajuster out from between the shoes


next there is a clamp that holds both shoes in place that needs to be pulled out of the hole in each shoe





see how the clamp is held on and the large spring that the e-brake cable passes through


take off the shoe that doesnt connect to the e-brake (should be the left one)



disconnect the e-brake cable retainer clip




pull out the e-brake cable

 

heres with all the stuff off

get your new shoes out.
put e-brake cable through the large spring


use flathead to get the cable head through the end


put spring through the hole


reconnect retainer clip


before you go forward reconnect e-brake cables back together along the frame rail


next put the shoes up where they go



pull on spring to get in the holes in the shoes, use visegrips




make sure you get the shoes on the wheel cylinder correctly


put the ajuster back in


put the ajuster clip back on


put spring back on




now the edge on the new shoes are sharp, so take a piece of sandpaper and take the edge off so the drum slides over easily



all done


now use the flathead and adjust the shoes so the drum slides over and spins easily.

I noticed that the pedal felt a little soft at first but after driving around for 5 miles or so the pedal felt like normal.

hope this help some of you

 

awesome write up. ive only changed disk brakes. so my 08 will be my first drum brake change.
this will definitely come in handy when i do mine. bookmarked.

 

Thanks. I am surprised how little material there seems to be on the new shoes. Not a whole lot more than the old shoes. Mine are making some groans at low speed easy stops.

 

I agree, the thing I was noticing was that my truck sounded like a school bus stopping at low speeds. That's why I wanted to change them.
I found the cause to be extreme wear on the bottem of each right shoe, I think it was the person that owned the truck before me drove with the e-brake on and caused that and glazing

 

Thanks, you nailed it. I did this last week, dicked around with the driver's side for about an hour...had a hard time with the big spring and getting the parking brake cable out of the retainer. I did the passenger side the next night in 20 minutes including removing and replacing the wheel. Next time will be much easier!

 

Thank you so very much. You made this job a lot easier then I thought it would be.

 

No problem!

 

Still wonder why Chevy is using shoes and drums on these new body style trucks. I thought after 98 they used pads and rotors all the way around as the only option on the 1500 series trucks anyways.

 

thanks!