I had a drum brake wheel cylinder go bad in one of the rear wheels in my '87 Dakota, so I went ahead and replaced them both. While I had the truck up on jackstands I started it up and ran through reverse and drive at slow idle (I also did the rear axle bearings while I was at it and wanted to make sure the diff wasn't going to eat itself). I noticed that the brakes won't actually stop the wheels at idle when they're off the ground, but if I shift to neutral they will. Is this expected, or is something not right? It seemed like more than I would expect from any drag in the transmission (if that's even a thing with ATs, I've had clutches in other MT vehicles that don't completely disengage the tranny and the drive wheel keeps turning when it's up in the air), but I never tried it with the wheels off the ground before. I did bleed the lines at both rear wheels after replacing the cylinders and don't have a soft pedal.
I got the truck down off of the jackstands and it seems to drive and stop fine. I replaced the shoes about a year ago, so they didn't need it now. I disassembled the passenger's side to get to the cylinder, but when I did the driver's side I realized I was able to just move everything out of the way enough by removing the return springs. I tried to bleed them with a vacuum pump and couldn't get anything out, so I did the old fashioned two-man method.
If you couldn't get enough out with a vacuum pump, probably there's blockage in the lines; I'd do the rubber hose back there first (hey, it's 30 years old - in truck years, that's like 90 human years!)
Yeah, you're probably right. Thanks, I'll give that a try.
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