66 C20 Brakes

[plmadding]

This last weekend I began working through the brake system on this truck. I've never worked on or even seen drum brakes before. Everything I've owned have been 4 wheel disk, so this was quite a learning experience.

The first major step was realizing I needed to knock out the stamped window to access the adjusting star through the front of the drum.


Then I continued to struggle to get the front drums off until I realized I could remove the spindle castle nut and pull the hub and drum together. I couldn't get one of the two screws out on each side that held the hub and drum together.

The inner and outer bearings look great and I'll put them back in. The wheel cylinders were shockingly bad! They were dry and crusty. When I cut the brake lines I got 2 drops of fluid out of one side. The other side didn't even drip once.

Piles of mud were packed around the back side of the back plate of the drum. I took a while to find the small screws holding the wheel cylinder on.

I've read some about how to remove the rear drums as they appear to be quite different since the axel is involved. Hopefully I'll be able to get to that as soon as my 6 point spindle nut wrench comes in.

The last picture is of the drums after I had them turned at Oreilly's. They said they didn't turn out right so they didn't charge me. The surface looks bad but is perfectly smooth. Is this an issue?