Hi, just changed my brake shoes on my 96 1500 Ram, also swapped the cylinder with the 3000 cylinder that I have been reading about.
Only did one side so far, will do the other tomorrow.
The drum is so tight I'll have to hammer it on, doesn't seem quite right.
I got the adjuster down to 0, everything looks tight and replaced correctly, I took pics and referenced the other side.
Can't figure it out, any ideas ,,,, I'm not exactly a brake guru, is a fit this tight to be expected ?

 

I had the same problem, and it turns out I had the leading and trailing shoes reversed. I honestly couldn't see any difference between them, but, when I switched them around, the problem went away. They weren't marked any differently in the set I have, but I think one has thicker friction material than the other or something like that.

I hate drum brakes. Disc brakes are much easier to deal with.

 

That would suck.
Oh well, should be easier the 2nd time around if I have to go that route.
I'm gonna make sure the parking brake did not somehow engage during the process, short of that I don't know what else to do but tear it down again and start all over, I can't see hammering a drum on.

 

no you should not have to hammer it on. and don't do that, you may never get it off.
something's wrong. check front/rear as said above. front might be thicker. then look for what is holding it out, preventing you from pushing them in more.

 

They appear to be snugged in as much as possible.
On the bottom there is the auto adjuster, all the way in.
Towards the top, just below the cylinder there is the metal spacer bar which runs between the two shoes, that is in as tight as possible.
So I don't see any feasible way to snug them in any more, and the whole works appears well centered on the back plate.

If there are different sized shoes then that would be my problem, I could be using 2 fronts.
All 4 were just jumbled in the same box, seems logical that if they go in specific places only that they would be marked.
Gonna tear into it later this afternoon, hopefully something will click.

 

Are the wheel cylinders extended or pushed in? Try opening the bleeder screw and pushing the shoes together at the top.

 

if you look at the brake shoes one has more pad in length of the shoe bracket that the other.the shorter pad in length goes to the front and the longer one goes to the rear.check your other shoes that you didnt put on and make sure that one is a longer half moon on the pad its self than the other. if they are the same you need to take it back apart and do it rite

 

Well I tore it down and reversed the pads, and was still too tight.
Finally dawned on me to match them up against the old ones, and it appears that the shoes are nearly a full 1/4 inch longer, as you can see in the 3rd pic.
Multiply that by 2, and therein lies my problem.

Took em back to Murrays and showed the guy, he tried different model years ect, and everything that he came up with was also the same size as the ones he first gave me.
Tried Autozone, same thing, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do.
Sure put a wrench in my works, damn truck will be down at least a full weekend, unless I can find something tomorrow.
I'm going to try a little mom and pop store, not many of those left, but I figure I might have better odds there, I think any major chain is going to pull up the same info on their computers.
If I can't find a match for my old ones, I guess I'll look into getting these rebuilt, which I heard can still be done.

1st pic is before, 2nd pic is after the first replacement.
3rd pic is the mismatched pair, the far end of the shoes are dead even, and you can see the overlap of the new black one.

BTW I did notice one pair of pads has extra grip surface, and I understand these go towards the back.
From the 2nd pic it looks like I used 2 rears, I don't think this makes a difference to the actual fit of the drum, as they are the same thickness.
Nonetheless I'll be sure to keep that in mind whenever I do get a correct sized set of shoes.

 

just a hunch but on the drum it's self does it have a rough ridge on the outer lip or did you get them turned also. the way the pics look you do have the wrong one on the front but you figured that already. try taking down the rust on the outer ring of the drum where the shoes ride in and see if it will slide over after you had cleaned them up

 

I took my 98 in last fall to have the back ones done, I was waiting for 2 hours. He came out and told me that no matter what he tried he could not get the drums back on. So they called and had some more brought in to them, put them on, and drums went on perfect. The only thing he could think of was that the manufacture had put more pad on the set he was trying. The set that wouldn't go on were Napa's, he ended up getting I think were Bumper to Bumper