I'm going to start off by confessing to my lack of experience working on drum brakes and I am praying that is the ultimate reason for my struggles.

Long story short, I'm trying to get this Jeep up and going for my sons first car. At the start of this process we had ZERO rear brakes and solid front brakes. I have replaced both rear brake lines, rear wheel cylinders, shoes, drums, all internal drum hardware, both rear parking brake cables and the master cylinder.

Started off replacing the shoes, wheel cylinders and rear brake lines (due to seized fittings). Put everything back together, went to bleed the passenger rear (2 person bleed) and got zero fluid and a super soft pedal. Tried a vacuum bleed and got VERY little fluid.

Next pulled the master cylinder and proportioning valve off. Bench bled the master cylinder and would continuously get bubbles so purchased a new master, bench bled it and put it on. Pulled the proportioning valve apart, everything looked good so put back on. Went to bleed the brakes (3 person bleed, 1 to pin the proportioning valve in the middle) and was finally getting a full stream of fluid to both rear brakes. Adjusted the brakes for a slight resistance, drove it, Zero rear brakes still (solid front brakes).

Next purchased a full hardware replacement kit for the drums, new drums and new rear handbrake cables. Got everything back together.....zero rear brakes. The hand brake works now tho.

I've basically replaced everything with the exception of the booster. Since the pedal is so soft and I have good front brakes I just assumed the booster was ok.

Not entirely sure where to go from here. I did replace everything exactly how I pulled it off and I am a bit suspect of the adjuster screw. I feel like its backing out when I push the brakes and not sure if I have a part in the right spot (picture below)



Is this bracket supposed to be ON the adjuster screw? If so....how do I get it there...

Any help would be appreciated, I like having hair and money and this one is making me rapidly loose both!

 

It looks like your adjustment screw is all the way in, so my guess is your rear shoes aren't even touching the drums at all when you press the pedal. Try backing the screw out so the shoes drag slightly on the drums when you turn the wheel.

 

I have a similar issue with brakes on my '94 and have a similar request for ideas on the forum. I have a new master cylinder on mine, and still have no brakes. But, I'm thinking my new MC is junk. Or, I've read that you can damage the MC by jamming the pedal to the floor and damaging the internal rubber seals. I'm waiting for some replies, but I did remove the cap to the MC, started the engine, and lightly pressed the brake pedal and a 'geyser' of fluid shot straight up out of the MC reservoir. Not sure that it's supposed to do that.

 

As stated above I've been adjusting the brakes where I get slight resistance. I'm stumped...

 

One problem I see with your brake hardware is that the adjuster cable anchor ring is not centered on the pin. (It needs to fit on the large diameter of the pin) This leaves the adjuster lever too low to work, it needs to touch the star wheel. Another potential problem are the adjusters, there are left and right hand threaded adjusters. You need to be sure that when the star wheel rotates up the adjuster extends. Did you grease the adjusters before installing them? Have you adjusted the brakes after installing the drum? Sometime the shoes need to find their home after the drum is installed. Is the parking brake adjusted too tight?

I would pull one brake drum at a time and have some slowly depress the brake pedal, while you observe and look for motion of the pistons expanding. You don't want the brake pedal depressed fully or forcefully as you could pop out the pistons from the brake cylinders. If there is no movement then you aren't getting pressure to the wheel cylinder. I would then look at your front brakes to see if the calipers are opening up too much. The pads should maintain full contact with the rotor when released. If you are finding gaps then this issue must be addressed. The rear brakes build pressure after the front brakes. Disk brakes are low pressure high volume and rear brakes are low volume high pressure.

Any air or leaks in the system need to be eliminated. Once all issues have been rectified, then you need to look at possibly a bad master cylinder. Proportioning valves rarely give you trouble unless its been tripped, cutting off the failed system.

 

The ring at the top of the cable coming up to the pin goes behind the wing thingy over the pin at the top.