Drum Surprise

[85Silverado]

Man...I'm finding more and more neglect as i go over my '78 I just bought. Today I was in search of my weak braking ability. Seemed like it took a lot to stop my truck and i noticed that my front tires, or rims actually, were pretty much completely black within a week. Checked the fronts, pads and everything were fine. Tore the rear axle apart to get the drums off the 14 bolt and talk about a freaking mess. The drums,pads, pretty much everything was covered in gear lube and what appeared to be grease and a whole lot of it. Looked like someone unloaded a grease gun in each of them.

Anyways....I look at the back of the drums for the seal....the dumb focker that had it before me tried to get the seals out and failed and just left the mangled ones in there so all the gear lube and bearing grease all ended up in the drums. I pulled the drum off and I swear at least a cup of gear lubed came out of the drum itself soon as i started pulling it away. Needless to say I was a bit pissed and spent a good 5 hours just doing the rear brakes and replacing the bearings, seals, pads, refilling the pumpkin with gear lube and not to mention cleaning all the grease and crap out of them...went through 8 cans of brake cleaner on the backing plate and cleaning out the drums and springs and whatnot...and that was with scrubbing not just trying to spray it away....it was f**king ridiculous. I wish I had a digi camera so ya'll could see the freaking mess...words cannot describe it all.

I'm glad I didn't drive it around besides the jockeying it around in the garage. Anyways...sorry for the long vent but i needed it..lol

Whats the worst thing you guys have encountered? be it jimmy rigged fixes from previous owners or anything?