Solved Odd drum brake failure. The adjuster fell out! WHY?

[OneofMany]

Hey guys, I did my rear brakes 6 months ago and had a sudden failure the other day. The brake pedal dropped way down when trying to stop and there was an odd noise in the rear brakes. I found that the adjuster had completely fallen out of its spot and was just tumbling around where it could.
I bought all new shoes and adjuster parts, put everything back together.
The shoes seem offset forward, putting the drum on is hard as you have to push the pads rearward to get it on and adjust it very loose to not drag too much. I think this is the same issue I ran into the last time and the cause for failure was a very loosely adjusted brake.
The cause for the shoes being offset is evidently the root of it all. I can move them back, but they don't want to.
Logically I assumed something was not assembled correctly, but every diagram I found confirmed it was correct. All the return springs are on the correct places that I can tell, the adjuster cable runs on the side of the adjuster lever and the lower return spring hooks to the adjuster Pawl and the front of the shoe. The cable guide runs under the top rear return spring and the tensions all seem right. I do not see what is pulling the shoes out of line. Has anyone had similar issues?

 

[BrooklynBay]

Maybe the adjuster was a little loose? Did it happen on both sides or just on one side?

 

[massacre]

Did one of the clips fall off of the shoe locating pins?

 

[OneofMany]

Maybe the adjuster was a little loose? Did it happen on both sides or just on one side?

Just one side failed.

Did one of the clips fall off of the shoe locating pins?

The locating pins are in position. The cause for me having to redo the rears 6 months ago was due to a locating pin shearing off. I attributed that to sticking brakes- rust after going through the creek.

 

[OneofMany]

I feel silly, I have done hundreds of drum brakes, but somehow I always manage to screw up my own equipment, LOL
Yellow spring on top from anchor pin to rear (secondary) shoe through adjuster cable guide. Green spring on top from anchor pin to primary shoe. blue spring on bottom from primary shoe to adjuster lever. swapping which spring is over the other in the anchor pin makes no difference it seems.
Maybe I just never noticed this, but maybe the primary shoe is supposed to be closer to the drum than the secondary. I do tend to overcomplicate things on my own vehicles... /banghead
But this would not explain the cause for the adjuster falling out of position and causing this failure.

 

[OneofMany]

Maybe the failure is simply due to 285k miles on a vehicle tortured by gravel roads.It's not the first time something fell off, LOL

 

[BrooklynBay]

Did you replace the drum? Maybe the drum is slightly out of shape with such high mileage.

 

[OneofMany]

The drum was new last time. One thing that occurred to me is to check if the adjuster may have been swapped from the other side. They are threaded opposite, so in theory the brake adjuster may have been loosening instead of tightening, but I can still read 'R' on the old one.
It is a mystery. When it stops raining (ever?) I will test drive.

 

[OneofMany]

Test drive went very well. I backed up, stopped a few times to let the self adjusters do the fine tuning. Parking brake gets tight about halfway down.
I can just assume the failure was due to light rust causing shoes to stick. No more setting the parking brake overnight after driving in rain or winter weather.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Thanks for the update! Your thread is now marked as solved.

 

[damnford]

remember the longer shoe goes in the back. as our instructor used to say the fat chick goes in the back. he could change brake shoes in less than three minutes with his bare hands