Heavy Duty 10 inch Drop Bumper + Bolt on Receiver Hitch - also wiring questions?

[1988 GMC 355]

Sounds like you are set for safe towing, I would check the brakes out real well, adjust the rears, make sure all fluids are topped off, tires are good and away you go once the wiring is all working right.

[mrweller]

Sounds like you are set for safe towing, I would check the brakes out real well, adjust the rears, make sure all fluids are topped off, tires are good and away you go once the wiring is all working right.

Any help/pointers for adjusting the rear brakes? I just put new front brake pads and rotors on to eliminate a vibration while braking. I think it was a warped rotor. I don't have any experience with brake drums at all, so any helpful advice would be much appreciated.

[1988 GMC 355]

Any help/pointers for adjusting the rear brakes? I just put new front brake pads and rotors on to eliminate a vibration while braking. I think it was a warped rotor. I don't have any experience with brake drums at all, so any helpful advice would be much appreciated.

Well on the bottom inside of each drum you will see a little hole that has a rubber plug in it, if you pull that out you have access to the shoe adjuster, you need to jack up the rear, block the front wheels and put it in neutral so you can spin each tire and adjust them till the barely drag then back off just a bit.

[mrweller]

Well on the bottom inside of each drum you will see a little hole that has a rubber plug in it, if you pull that out you have access to the shoe adjuster, you need to jack up the rear, block the front wheels and put it in neutral so you can spin each tire and adjust them till the barely drag then back off just a bit.

Are there any special tools that I'll need to use? I have access to lots of tools at the shop at my father in law's farm, so this may be tomorrow's project! I love being able to work on my stuff at the farm. Are there any easy ways to tell if the rear brakes need to be replaced at all? The truck currently has 132,000 miles on it and I am not sure if the previous owner ever put brakes on the rear end.

[1988 GMC 355]

A flash light and a small flat head screw driver just adjust then hit the brakes and cycle the pedal a few times to get them set right. Well pull your drums and inspect the pads, the drums slide right off after you take the wheel off, if the drum won't come come off then the shoes need to be adjusted in. These trucks rarely ever use up rear shoes and drums unless they are really miss adjusted.

[mrweller]

A flash light and a small flat head screw driver just adjust then hit the brakes and cycle the pedal a few times to get them set right. Well pull your drums and inspect the pads, the drums slide right off after you take the wheel off, if the drum won't come come off then the shoes need to be adjusted in. These trucks rarely ever use up rear shoes and drums unless they are really miss adjusted.

That sounds good 1988GMC355! I'll be using the big airjack at the farm that can lift the entire back end of the truck and block the front tires and get to work tomorrow. I've noticed I have a lot of pedal travel in my brakes before they feel like they engage. I think this may help things out!

[Jmac72]

You could also just pump the E-brake pedal a few times,it should do the same thing.

[1988 GMC 355]

You could also just pump the E-brake pedal a few times,it should do the same thing.

Would work too!

That sounds good 1988GMC355! I'll be using the big airjack at the farm that can lift the entire back end of the truck and block the front tires and get to work tomorrow. I've noticed I have a lot of pedal travel in my brakes before they feel like they engage. I think this may help things out!

Not a problem! Sounds like you got the tools! make sure to set her down on some jack stands though.

[ToyHauler]

if your in a area where there is salt like me alot of the time you get lack of petal because those adjusters seize. when you take the drum off make sure those are free and put some never-seize then carry-on as suggested. if they are seized dont spend too much time on them you can get new ones for cheap.

[TiredFarmer]

Here are a couple ideas for you: For the topper dome light, you can pick up the stick-on ones for toolboxes that work pretty good. When I had my Explorer, I put the trailer wires through the extra hole for the license plate light (only needed one side to work) The 5 round ones fit great there! If you decide to go with the 7 blade RV connector on the truck, then you'll need to affix some sort of ell bracket (1/4 inch angle iron works good) to the bottom of bumper.
As for rear brakes, I would pull rear wheels when you jack it up and look at condition before trying to adjust them. There is a brake adjustment tool that is pretty inexpensive, it looks like a wrench: http://www.bing.com/shopping/k-d-too...ol&FORM=CMSMEE

[mrweller]

I attempted to adjust the rear brakes but there was not a rubber plug on the bottom inside of the drum. There were two oblong shaped rubber plugs up big on either side of the drum and a much smaller round plug near one of them. I couldn't see an adjuster of any sort to mess with so I didn't do anything other than inspect the rear brakes. Both the father in law and I looked at them and there is a lot of wear left in them and they seemed pretty close to the drum so may not need adjusted much after all.

On another note, I had to go pick up a garage door 70 miles from home so I am halfway through my journey (picked up garage doors and loaded them on the trailer). At this point the truck hasn't even noticed it is pulling a trailer yet. Being that the door panels aren't very heavy I doubt it'll make much difference going home either.

[Jmac72]

If you had the drums off,the adjuster is at the bottom center.Looks like a star wheel.The self adjusting lever is in front of it,so it is hard to see.Every time you use the E-brake it turns that star wheel a tiny bit.This is supposed to keep them adjusted.The problem is people with a automatic trans,don't use the E-brake.If the brakes work fine.I wouldn't worry about.

Happy towing.

[mrweller]

If you had the drums off,the adjuster is at the bottom center.Looks like a star wheel.The self adjusting lever is in front of it,so it is hard to see.Every time you use the E-brake it turns that star wheel a tiny bit.This is supposed to keep them adjusted.The problem is people with a automatic trans,don't use the E-brake.If the brakes work fine.I wouldn't worry about.

I didn't have the drums off. I pulled the three different rubber plugs out that I could find. I'll post pics as soon as I get them off my blackberry and up on photobucket.com. I may try the e-brake adjustment method to see if that does anything for it at all.

[ToyHauler]

like i said they are normally seized, im sure they use salt in SD. you have to take the drum off and take it off and put some never seize on it and then the ebrake adjustment may work. but you have to adjust it as mentioned with the shoes slightly dragging because the shoe doesnt have a lot of travel and the petal feel is very dependent on the rears being adjusted that way

[mrweller]

Actually the SD DOT uses very little salt on the roads during the winter here. They use more sand than anything. When I took the plugs out of the backside of the brake setup, none of them were near the 6 o'clock position. They were at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock instead. The tiny round one was just to the inside of the oblong shaped plug at the 10 o'clock position.

[mrweller]

Here are a couple of pics from my driver side rear brake.


Thoughts?

[TiredFarmer]

I didn't have the drums off. I pulled the three different rubber plugs out that I could find. I'll post pics as soon as I get them off my blackberry and up on photobucket.com. I may try the e-brake adjustment method to see if that does anything for it at all.

How can you inspect the brake shoes for wear without taking the drums off? I'm confused. Take the drums off, look at the whole brake shoe, and while there identify the star-wheel adjuster. From your pic it is the oblong one.

[mrweller]

Well, the trip is close at hand now. We leave early Friday morning for the turkey hunting trip in South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest. The 6'x12' aluminum trailer is about 6" too short to hold the atvs, so I borrowed a friend's snowmobile trailer to haul them with instead. Everything looks good to go, just need to top off the fluids in the truck and check tire pressures all around.

[mrweller]

Back from the Black Hills turkey hunting trip but we didn't have any success in the hunting department. It rained all day Saturday and turned to snow that night and on Sunday morning. We got in some atv trail riding on Sunday afternoon/evening and had a great time!

The truck performed well going out there and coming back. I might have babied it a bit going out as it was the first real towing job for the truck, but coming home we brought the interstate when we could and she would run right up at or near the speed limit without hunting for gears.