Back to report the progress. I ended up having the drums mic'd and turned at a machine shop. They look good, so I took the new one's back to NAPA. After putting the drums back on and attempting to adjust the star wheel with the tool from my brake kit, I was getting frustrated about how long it was taking to get some drag against the drum, so I pulled the drum off to check how far it had expanded on the star wheel adjustor, and it hadn't moved. So, apparently, the last time I put on new brake pads and "adjusted them by sound", the sound I was hearing was the wheel clicking off the tool and snapping back to it's original position. Not sure how I heard the drum dragging on that install, but I must have been imagining things, since the adjustors were completely closed when I opened them up this time. My fault! It never occurred to me that, after backing the adjustor off those 15 clicks would allow me to open it up and check my work last time. Duh.
So this time, after finding the adjustor wasn't expanding, I got out my vise grips and manual grabbed the wheel and turned it one click at a time with the drum off, occasionally nutting the drum back on to check for drag. At this point, I also found out that by just sticking the drum on the hub would allow the brake to drag a bit just because the drum was off a little by not running down a few nuts. (Probably what I did last time). Anyway, I tightened them down until they were dragging, then backed them off the 15 clicks, ending up with about 5/8" of adjustor thread showing on the passenger side and about 1/2" on the drivers side. I still can't believe the star wheels weren't turning after I figured it out. I stuck that adjusting tool in there and held pressure on it as I turned it, and it sure felt like it was clicking down to the next spot. I was really surprised when I pulled the drum to see they hadn't budged. And I cleaned the heck out of them when I had everything apart, so they were spinning freely when I put them back in. But this does explain why I ended up with nearly new pads on the back when I pulled them off the other day. What's weird is that the front adjustors worked fine. I hope. Hmm... maybe i'll go back out there and pull the front drums off just to make sure I wasn't imagining rubbing noises when I adjusted those! But they were the two that HAD adjusted out correctly the last brake change, so probably not. But now, I'm going to check them anyway. The wheels have to come back off to put new tires on them before I align the front end, so at least that'll be easy.
Jerry, I really don't feel like pulling those shoes again after all this, but, what would you recommend per the 'water based glue'? That's a new one on me.
