I pulled the drum off my RR the other day and noticed one of the wheel cylinder push pins was completely out of the slot on the brake shoe. I decided to just do a complete rear brake job since I've been on a kick of refreshing stuff since the truck is now 14 years old.

When I started yesterday everything came off easily with no problems. I installed new ThermoQuiet shoes and Raybestos wheel cylinder. I bought a new hardware kit, which was everything except for new adjusters. After I put everything on, I had an extremely hard time getting the drums back on. My problem was the bottom of the shoes weren't retracting far enough. There is a 6" long spring that hooks on the bottom of both shoes right above the adjuster (long spring right below the two hold down springs in this picture).




When I took the old shoes off it was straight and seemed to have tension on it. Now in order to get the shoes pressed in enough the spring has to bow upwards. This doesn't seem right to me, however I can't get the shoes in far enough without it bowing up. Even with the adjuster screw all the way out, there still isn't tension on the spring. The old and new spring are the same length. Anyone ever had this problem?