I felt something was wrong with the rear end and I jacked the car up and felt a pretty good drag while rotating the wheels. Upon investigation I realized that the left rear brake shoe was dragging against the drum. I re-adjusted both rear brake shoes and at the same time changed the rear differential fluid. After that was done I added a can of Freon. All is well, tires rotate freely and the AC is blowing cold. This is on my 1989 GMC S15 Jimmy with almost 450K on the odometer. See the link below for a description of the gauge.

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item....re&dir=catalog

 

Did that freon help free up the brakes? LOL had to say it. A little drag on the rear brakes is ok. You want to where the drum spins about a full turn and a half before it stops.

 

Haha, that's what I was thinking too.

 

I have a snap on brake gauge that you use to set the gauge on the inside of the drum and lock the nut and the outside gauge is preset and is used to set the shoe diameter.

 

Where on earth did you find Freon? LOL... Freon is soooooooo bad for the environment. Methinks you used a can of R134... But lets not nitpick. I back my brakes off, and spoon them just until you can hear the shoes beginning to rub. This give a nice high pedal and you know they are in adjustment properly.

 

I used the term Freon in the generic sense for R134. As far as I am concerned it is all Freon but there a different types for different applications.

 

i have never seen that gauge before. pretty neat. ive always just adjusted them out til they barely scrape the drum and called it a day. if i start using proper tools at work they are going to expect that stuff all the time from me

 

I got 4 wheel disk

 

we had them way back in high school
Cant say I have ever seen one used in a licensed garage