The part in the yellow circle needs to slide over and fit about as far as the white arrow is pointing.
I can readjust the shoes to sit correctly on the anchor bolt with the parking brake lever positioned as you say. Then if I press brake pedal again, with or without the drums on, the shoes and cylinder actuator rods end up in basically the same shape again. Done this several times already. It seems that the return springs are strong enough as they're pulling the shoes back up towards the anchor bolt. It's as if the fluid is not allowed to return to the Master cylinder and that's what's causing the actuator rods to deflect upwards as in my picture. The return springs seems to be working against the wheel cylinder pressure? Master Cylinder was good before we tore down rear end...
