Can this be said on the list?

[sciroccos at earthlink.net (Jim Ruffi)]

>1. there are no star nuts on Scirocco drum brakes. There is only a
>tapered pin with serations on one side that is pulled down by a spring
>as allowed by the brake shoes moving out. I don't believe there is any
>braking backwards procedure, you just brake and as the shoe moves out
>the tapered pin pulls down setting the clearance. Would be important
>to get the tapered pin installed correctly cause the serations hold it
>from moving up and letting the shoes move away from the drums.


I forgot about that...
They did away with the star nuts as of MY1979.  Prior to that, it was a
simple adjustment...I liked the star nuts better!

Dan is right, the pin needs to be greased and installed properly.  You then
need to work those brakes quite a bit to get them to self-adjust.  I swear
that I was able to get them to adjust by backing up and hitting the brakes,
but I don't recall whether or not that's a "official" procedure.  It just
seemed to help on the handful of rear brake jobs I did.  I think the jogging
of the mechanism by the braking in reverse does help the adjusting pins to
move down.  You can also work the parking brake a bunch of times to help
things along.

I'm not certain, but I think you should keep the cables pretty loose at
first...too much pull from the parking brake levers on the shoes might keep
the tapered pins in place, impeding automatic adjustment.

Sorry about the misinformation.
Jim