Im doing the rear brakes on my 89 Cherokee. Both of the sets of shoes I've tried are missing a post where spring goes. I tried tapping out the old one but the hole in the new shoes is too big. I just put the new shoes inside the drum and they don't fit, whats going on?

Guess I have a newer dana 35 with the smaller 9" shoes. I didn't think that was likely with the whole c-clip/non thing but idk when they started the smaller shoes. thanks

Are you sure you don't have the wrong drums on...On my '87, it has the 2.5 inch brakes. There's also 1.75" so the drum won't fit over the larger shoes if it's not correct. Not sure on your '90. Are you sure you got a Dana 35? Mine has a Dana 44 with 10", 2.5" wide brakes.

Someone could have swapped axles or swapped brake drums along the way.

My 90 XJ has the 9" drums. From what I heard on this site, 10" is for tow packages or police packages. Actually my 88 MJ also uses 9" drums. Both are original Dana 35s.

If the drum is smooth it's a 9", if it has ribs all the way around its a 10".

Sounds like they started using the smaller drums in '90. Advance, auto zone, and napa all show the 10" diameter for an 89', I found the 9" by looking up a 93.

It's a 35, not the original it's been swapped at some point.

Mine also had the diameter marked on the side.

why not swap to som zj disk brakes instead of new drums?