Rear Brakes Locking-up

Like the title says, my rear brakes are locking up. Not familiar with the whole drum brake system. I have replaced shoes and a spring kit on another XJ, but never worked right after that.

Does anyone have some pointers to look out for, or things I may need to do to make it work right when I am done.

Thanks for any help

I haven't done drum brakes either but i found this that I plan on using during the summer. Hope it helps! :viking:

http://jeepin.com/features/drums/

Usually when they start locking up it's from a wheel cylinder leaking brake fluid onto the shoes. The shoes get soft and swell.
Or sometimes an axle seal leaking onto the shoes, then sand, dirt and brake dust stick to the shoes and cause them to grab.
Or sometimes your drums are full of mud.
Or sometimes, after sitting for extended periods, the drums get a coating of rust that causes them to grab for awhile (until the rust wears off).

GoJeep has a good writeup, http://www.go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoRearDrums1.htm

Mine would lock up occasionally on my 2000. The previous owner had already bought the shoes, but never put them on. I tore it open and discovered nothing really wrong and lots of wear left on the shoes. Changed out the shoes and put on new anyway. While reassembling, I noticed that the passenger side adjuster cable part was too long to hold the adjuster lever properly over the star wheel. Put it back together anyway. Maybe they are all like that. Next summer, maybe I'll open it back up and try to find a cable the right length or shorten the one I have. If the shoes are too far out of adjustement, they could possibly jam up.

You could try reaching through the slot underneath and adjusting out the star wheels on both sides until the extra slop is taken up. This is normally done automatically, but might not work right like on mine. You just adjust out until the brakes start to bind, and then back off a little. Only takes about 5 minutes once you figure it out. Had to do it all the time on old Volkswagens that didn't have automatic adjusters.

had this problem, bought all new stuff for piece of mind before i tackled it. problem was the brakes would have a really bad warped rotor feeling in the back. so bad that pulling the ebrake would make the front wheel shake...especially once the brakes got hot. also usually after sitting over an hour or so in high humidity, or after a rain, or just sitting a few days....one of the rear brakes would be like hair-trigger and lock right up. once i rode the brakes for a block or so...either by foot or the ebrake.. problem would be gone. but that one brake always wanted to lock up premature even if it was dry and tried to stop 100%.

Anyway, everything looked fine, shoes had tons of life left, drums were really really rusty on the outside but inside looked good, not a huge lip on them, no leaky wheel cylinders and the adjusters were greased and seemed as if they were working fine...

so i scratched my head and replaced everything anyway... but right after i removed the old drums to dive in. i took notice that the wheel that was having all these issues, had BOTH of the larger brake shoes on it. and the wheel that had no issues, had BOTH of the smaller shoes on it! so i probably could have gotten away just swapping those, but knowing all new stuff is in there and the job was done right was worth me dropping the coin on the parts...and the 25F weather in my garage installing them =)

so you know when u buy a set of brake shoes there will be two that have a larger surface of friction material than the other two. these larger friction surfaces go towards the rear of the truck. and the smaller go toward the front (obviously).

Banditt007 I'd love 25 degree weather in my garage. Problem is the homeowners insurance company just gave me a letter to either remove my garage wood burner or pay $475 dollars more a year to keep it. It's 10 degrees right now and supposed to get colder throughout the day.

Well if this ain't a b####. Yesterday I was scouting out some more lakes to ice fish and while on the way home I just put my Jeep into the ditch. Never ever did this in my life and I drive around 45000 miles a year in this area. I assumed maybe I was driving too fast for conditions and was too relaxed. Anyways what I found out after getting it out of the ditch is the right wheel locking up on snowy roads with the softest of touch to the brake pedal. On the same roads I had to slam the brake pedal to get the fronts to lock. I'm thinking proportioning valve. Any other ideas?