Help!!! Son's wrangler's brakes

[OldJoe]

I know this is for KJ's but Jeeps are Jeeps are Jeeps. His '03 Wrangler's rear drum brake drums are stuck. Both sides. They're loose. We drilled out the retaining pins to release the shoes. We unbolted the piston and disconnected the brake line. Everything should just fall off, right? Wrong. Drums are nearly off but it seems like something near the top is hooking on the inside lip of the drum. Any ideas? I'll be getting a friends drum pulled tomorrow. Anything else?

Thanks guys.

Joe

 

[CactusJacked]

The drums very likely have a raised wear ridge (the drums wore down where the shoes ride) on the outer edge, and the shoes are preventing the drums from sliding past the ridge. You need to either back off the adjuster that's at the bottom to compress the shoes; if you don't know how, look it up online since you'll need to adjust the new shoes out the same way. If you can't get that to work (sometimes the adjuster is frozen) you'll need to break out a bigger pry bar.

 

[OldJoe]

Cactus Jacked and others.

Well, I got them. Couldn't get to the adjusting screw from the back access slot. Ended up drilling a series of 1/2" holes in the drum outside of the hub edge. We got the adjusting screw all of the way in but they still didn't want to come off. Rotated my slot to the top and I could pop off both retracting springs. That did it.
My son is a Mechanical Engineer. I've told him the more you do this kind of work, the better you can design thing that will be more easier repaired. I didn't spill any more blood than normal and anytime you can work with you kids, that a good time.