Ok, we've tried getting inside the drums and turning the knobs to their inner-most position and we still can't get the drums off. They both move about 1/8'th inch outward and then stop. Has anyone come into contact with this problem? We'd like to have both the front disks and rear drums turned down at the same time, but we can't seem to get the rear drums off. And we've also tried the percussive-engineering method. ;)

Oops, sorry - the car is a '69 SS 396 El Camino

When you are backing off the bendix adjuster, are you holding the metal plate back so you can back off the adjuster? If not, the adjuster will only move about 1/8" back and forth.

Also, the reason why the drum might not come off is that there might have a lip worn into the drum on the edge where the brake shoes have not made contact with.

Also try checking your park brake cables. to see if they haven't been over adjusted. because that will make the brake drums tight. and the drums will be hard to get off.

Might check where the inside of the drum goes over the axels,sometimes if they haven't been off in awhile some rust will build up around there and make them hard to get off'

Thanks for the quick replies guys! The adjuster moved quite a bit - I can move the little wheel to lock going both ways. The thing is, I can only find one of them...and that's on the drivers side rear drum. On the passenger side I can't find anything.

I had a feeling that something might just be holding us back (rust or the lip they might have made). We talked to a couple parts places and all of them said the drums should just come off real easy once the adjustments have been taken care of. 'Looks like I'm about to go under the Elkie and beat the hell out of the drums. :( But they probably need replacing anyway. Oh well, I was hoping it was just something we missed. Thanks again guys,

Oh, 83, I've got the parking brake removed (well, it's not being held up anymore b/c I had to take the drivers-side kick pannel out for stereo reasons), and the wheels turn free, so unfortunately that's not it. :-( Oh well, on to pounding I go...

Well we got them off! We had to bang on the sides of the drums (where the real meat is) with a small sledgehammer VERY hard, and then the drums just slid off. I suppose the drums were still connected to the pads too well and needed a jolt.

Anyway, thanks for all the replies/help!

As someone mentioned before, the hole in the center of the drum fits over the end of the axel, that can rust (Axel End) and make it to where the drum will move a tad but will not slide over the small amount needed to relieve that. A small offset grinder with a wire wheel or some sand paper will fix that.

When I replaced the 76s' rear brakes the adjustment on the park brake cable had me in fits. Like someone else point out it had been over adjusted and kept a tight enough amount of tension so that the brake pads were always engaged even with the adjuster in as far as I could make it go.

I had one other problem. When I bought the truck it had four locks on the wheels I had no keys for! :x That was some more fun.