I haven't seen it yet but my Dad tore apart the back hub assemblies to do the brake shoes. He got the passenger side done and went to do the driver side and the hub won't come off. He says it makes a grinding sound if you turn it but it's as if there is something holding it back, and it's unable to be taken off. I'm thinking frozen emergency brake or something, but is there a trick to these things? Anyone else encounter something like this? Advice? Not familiar with fords myself. Thanks.

Depending on how old the current hardware is there is most likely a ridge on the inside of the drum. If the e-brake is fine then you can either retract the shoes through the access hole or rip the drum off and ruin harware and possably a wheel cyclinder.

You may need to loosen the parking brake cable a bit.

I haven't seen it yet but my Dad tore apart the back hub assemblies to do the brake shoes. He got the passenger side done and went to do the driver side and the hub won't come off. He says it makes a grinding sound if you turn it but it's as if there is something holding it back, and it's unable to be taken off. I'm thinking frozen emergency brake or something, but is there a trick to these things? Anyone else encounter something like this? Advice? Not familiar with fords myself. Thanks.

BleedDoge

I take it you mean the brake drum not the hub. Can the brake drum be pulled out at all? Or is it rusted to the hub? You should be able to tell if it's the brake shoes that's keeping the brake drum from coming off by feeling the springs pulling back.

Regards

Dan

Thanks for the replies. We got the passenger side put back together but now the wheel won't turn. Eventually got the driver side off and just like the other side the brakes don't look that bad. This van has about 140k miles on it and the old shoes still look like the new ones, so we're stumped. You can hear the grinding sound coming from the back every time you apply the brakes but the shoes don't seem worn out at all, abnormal or not. Near as we can tell it's those self-adjusting cylinders that seem froze up. We ordered new ones and we're gonna try that. Thanks for everything so far guys.

Yah Dan I meant brake drum. When I talked to my dad I was just going by what he was telling me, I hadn't even seen the van until last night.