New to the forum with a new to me truck, question on the parking brake

freeclimbmtb · September 22, 2014

As the title states, I just picked up my truck: a 2003 1-owner GMC Sierra 2500HD, 73k miles, 6.0L, 5MT, 4x4, Regular cab, 8' bed, has the GM Plow and Tow packages but has never pushed a plow. It also came with a Backrack Safety rack, a spray in bedliner, and an aluminum tool box. Its the perfect truck for what I need, something I can use to keep the trash out of my GTI and be able to pile high with firewood or a yard or two of crushed stone.

It was sitting unregistered when I bought it due to a failed safety inspection for rusted through bumpers. I had it towed to a garage to get checked out as I couldn't drive it, they also identified the brakes needing to be addressed since it had been sitting and the ebrake intermediate cable snapped.

I bought and installed a pair of ebay chrome bumpers complete with a coat of ruberized undercoating on the inside surface to hopefully keep this set from rusting out. Here they are installed next to the old ones.

And one of the truck in some better light.

On to the brakes, I have the rear driverside pulled apart and though there is decent life left on the pads, they are worn unevenly and the rotors have good thickness but are pretty rough, so I'm going to go ahead and replace them for piece of mind if nothing else. I had to rip the parking brakes all apart to get the cable out of that wheel also which brings me to my problem.

Even though there seems to be life there too, I am going to go ahead and replace the shoes and hardware kit but I can't seem to get enough finger room to reinstall the retainer clips on the shoes.

Do I need to go buy the 6 pin lock nut tool and rip the hub apart too?? or is there a trick to reinstalling the clips? On my CJ-7 you can get strait to them and push/twist the retainers, but this is a whole different animal!

Thanks for the help all!

99silveradoz71 · September 23, 2014

Welcome aboard.

freeclimbmtb · September 23, 2014

Welcome aboard.

Thanks!

So I have just about settled on forking over the 30-50 bucks for the locknut socket and just pulling the hubs to make my life less of a living hell. Does anyone know of a parts store that regularly carries the locknut sockets? (OTC1929 or equiv?) So far I have tried Advanced, Autozone, NAPA, O'Rileys and Pep Boys with no luck.. Amazon can get me one pretty quick but I would MUCH rather just pick one up today and be done with it...

EDIT: Looks like Pep Boys does have it, but it comes in a kit with 4 other locknut sockets. Fortunately they have a tool rental program and this qualifies...my local store even has one in stock! Woohoo!