I believe that you can remove them without pulling the springs, but I can't remember ever removing them without the springs... LOL

 

would the brakes needing adjusted cause the parking break to not work?

 

It depends on the condition of your shoes and drum. From what I understand, your rear brakes and parking brake are activated by 2 separate systems. Regular brakes (ie. via brake pedal) are hydrolic, whereas your parking brakes utilize a mechanical cable. However, both operate the same shoes on the same drum. So I guess if your brake shoes or drum was really worn neither brakes would work. Also, if your shoes were also not adjusted (you said your self adjusters were siezed up), then the shoes might not be expanding far enough to cause the necessary amount of friction with the drum for your brakes to work.

I have found that the easiest way to test if your brake shoes are expanding far enough to have good contact with the drum would be to raise the back of your truck so that both rear tires are above the ground. Put the truck in neutral and try to spin the back tires with your hand, they should spin freely. Then apply the parking brake and try to spin them again with your hand. You should have a much more difficult time turning them, if you can even turn them at all. If you can still spin them easily, then your shoes are not expanding far enough and may need adjustment / replacement.

Hope this helps. Let us know what you find out.

 

yea the shoes still have alot of life left on them..so im guessing it just needs adjustment..ill let you know when i bring it to my shop class and change the adjusters

 

Yeah I'm also in an automotive class at school, if your adjusters are not working then that could easily be the cause for your rear brakes and parking brakes not to work. But your front brakes should still work okay and still slow the truck fairly well. Although you won't have as good of braking as you would will all 4 wheels working properly. Try changing the adjusters and getting everything adjusted correctly. hopefully that fixes your problem, if not you may have to consider bleeding your brakes anyway just incase some air found a way into your system. Have you checked the fluid level in the master cylinder?

 

Well check all the usual suspects fluid level in master cylinder. Also even though you did not remove anything from the lines it is always a good safety measure to bleed the brakes any time you do something related to them, especially R&R a rear differential. It is also possible that whether realizing it or not there might be a kink in the metal lines running across the differential if they were not carefully removed and supported while the diff's were swapped.

 

Ok changed the adjuster..now brakes woerk like they did before and got the parking break back..so i am happy

 

Glad to know you have you brakes back.