There's still a few unanswered questions

 

I had my rear drums shoes cylinders adjustment hardware and everything replaced. When I got it back from my mechanic the pedal went right to the floor! Turns out he forgot to tighten the shoes. They were all the way loose! After tightening then the pedal was right where it was supposed to be. This taught me that the rear adjustment has a direct impact on pedal feel. Crawl back there and tighten each side a few clicks and then test the pedal. For some reason my new self adjusters in the rear spin opposite the factory ones so my tightening and loosening procedure is reversed now. I don't know why. Anyway, try that and get back to us!

 

My 2008 had the horseshoe spring the 2011 had the American type . The self adjuster worked opposite each other.

Horseshoe



American

 

For any future readers of this thread, I spoke too soon. After reading this I decided to check out my adjustment again. Lo and behold, my rear drums were so out of adjustment that the wheel spun so free Lynyrd Skynyrd would be impressed. I tightened them up, pull the e-brake a couple times to seat the shoes, then depressed the brake pedal. On my test drive, the brake pedal held at least two inches higher, my front end shudder is all but gone (yes rear adjustment does help with this), and the car stopped firmer than ever before. That four click rule for the e-brake really works guys! I think a good rule is tighten the wheel until you can spin it with two fingers (grab with thumb and index) and gently yet firmly push, and let the wheel get around about one and a half to two full rotations before stopping. You should be able to hear some drag. At least thats the best setting I could come up with. I learned the two finger rule from a thread on this forum (no its not that kind of forum XD) and it worked great!

 

I have found that if you just adjust the shoes WITHOUT seating the shoes, by stepping on the pedal, The pedal will be lower than expected. That's why I try to always say "properly adjusted", sometimes I assume everybody knows to do that.

 

You know youngins like me dont know simple english!

 

I was talking to my father about this and he told me that if I have to adjust The Star wheel in the opposite direction than I did before having the brakes replaced that the adjusters must have been installed on the wrong sides. Is this possible? When I adjusted the brakes I did notice that The Star wheel spun opposite the directions given on the forum. I had to turn the drivers side wheel counter clockwise to tighten and the passenger side clockwise. That's not a good thing is it.

 

https://www.chevyhhr.net/forums/brak...justing-39932/
This thread says the opposite of what I have to do. On each side I must turn the wheel upwards to tighten through the access hole at the back of the drum. Which is the correct way??

 

I think you might have put them on wrong. Maybe the self adjusters were wrong.

Which type of brakes do you have? The top pic or the bottom.

 

I have the top pic. I did not put them in, a local shop did the work. I needed to replace the wheel cylinder on one side, so I had them replace the entire guts of both sides for piece of mind. Since each side spins opposie the way it should, I think they are just backwards. Now I do not know if I should go back and ask them to swap the two sides, they may refuse or think I am crazy, how can I prove that they are spinning opposite the way they should without coming across as a whiny young know it all? I didnt notice until now because I hadnt tried adjustment till I posted in this thread.