Thanks for all the tips. Yes, I was confusing the parking brake shoe assembly in the rotor with the caliper which sits separately. I guess I have watched too many You Tube video's on all brake jobs. After awhile it gets jumbled together!

 

Good to know how the piston can get stuck.

As for the parking brake, I've had issues trying to figure out how to adjust them until I figured it out on my own. I even had the GM manual. Only after I worked it out did I find the adjustment instructions. Basically there is a self-adjuster like for all drum brakes, that has to be manually adjusted to set the intial position of the shoes. This was important to me as I use this truck to launch my sailboat and I only wanted the boat to go into the water!

 

I have had some experience with GM cars in the days of disc front/ drum rear brake configuration. The rear brake pads last a lot longer than the front pads do. Thank goodness for that, because the rear drums were difficult to replace and even more difficult to adjust properly. The part where you are supposed to spin the wheel assembly while you turn the adjustment star through a hole in the drum was the hard part. The wheel assembly was not spinning freely due to the rear differential. It was hard to feel if the resistance was from the shoes touching the drum or the differential!
Anyone have a recommendation on a caliper brand to use?

 

In addition to which caliper to get, I noticed the You Tube vid's say two conflicting instructions. On the cal. pin slider , there is a 'locking' 12 mm bolt. Some vid's say to use red Loctite on this 12 mm bolt and others say to use anti-seize! This is contradictory. Do you need to secure with Loctite or keep it from seizing with anti seize?

 

I am learning about ordering calipers: loaded vs unloaded, most have a phenolic piston, how to get a Cardone reman. caliper vs an oversea's i.e. Chinese reman. caliper. With bracket vs without bracket----why buy a bracket when the one on the SUV is perfect and is already mounted securely?

 

Good question I'd say it's marketing that makes You buy. I have been riding several +-20 yrs old cars of a different producers and the common problem were:
- stuck calipers & slides (most often)
- breaking & leaking brake fluid pipes (rare, due to aging)
- rare problem were the piston sealings
- never ever had a problem that made me replace the caliper
I've bought a caliper only once in my life. It was for the Blazer and it was the time when I just bought my ride - I was aware there is some problem with a caliper (truly a smelly problem), but did not know exactly what kind of. So I bought the used caliper set from the wreckers in advance for $50.

If they're iron casted I used to clean them with a brass brush and paint over with a heat-resistant spray. Aluminum ones requires almost to none of the attention.

 

It's not marketing. Dual piston calipers can fail on one cylinder and tweak the bracket. No one can warranty a caliper that's mounted on a bent bracket. Semi-loaded calipers with a lifetime warranty are the way I go.

 

You are right on that I've never faced that issue, as all my previous cars were single piston designs.

 

Thanks for all the replies and help. Yesterday I worked on the driver's side caliper. I removed the bleeder screw and it was clean. I had heard on You Tube, they will sometimes clog up with corrosion. This one was very clean and so it was time to order the new calipers. Since I was going to have to wait for one cal. , I decided to order both rear calipers. They are single piston design, so I went with 1./ Unloaded=I already had the pads and SS hardware and 2./ No bracket=due to the single piston design. My original piston was steel, the remanufactured one has a 'Phenolic piston' which means resin. I made sure the Adv Auto Parts gave me a reman. cal. made by Cardone. Read the details on the item and it will tell you a lot of good info. I have heard they are one of the best remanufacturers. So I felt good about the product. Not in stock any where at my local Adv Auto Parts stores , so I ordered them on line. The good news is each cal. is only $45.00 and with a discount of 20%, it is not a major expense. I have been notified that they have been shipped. Glad I have a extra car for the first time. Having a 'parts car' is a nice thing to have. Sincere thanks for all who responded. Jim

 

With the bleeder screw completely removed, I tried to compress the cal. piston with a C-clamp and old pad over the piston. It went in a little further, but I still couldn't get the cal. over the new pads positioned over the rotor & pads. It was so close. I was tempted to remove the thin 'anti squeak' backing from the back of each pad. That may have allowed me to seat the cal. on the new pads. I was tempted but DID NOT do that. I knew I would regret that further down the road.