I have a significant brake shake that is coming from the back of my 2WD 1999 Sport Ram 1500. It has drum brakes on the rear with the RWAL. Everything has been replaced with the rear brakes and they lock up very easy at times with a shake. It feels like the ABS is sticking. There are no ABS lights illuminated on my dash. Is it possible that the RWAL valve could be bad and not set an ABS light? I have replaced the rear differential speed sensor already just in case since it was cheap but that did not fix the problem. Can I bypass the RWAL valve to see if that is the problem? Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

Hey there, Im wondering if your shoes arent adjusted right. Like being too loose. They could grab and walk forward like a wedge causing them to lockup and grab???

 

Or are the shoes simply installed wrong? The shoes with the shorter friction surface go in FRONT.

 

I removed the fuse for the ABS/RWAL just to check and see if the RWAL valve was the issue. Of course then the ABS light on the dash illuminated but drove truck and still have same problem of brake shake and easy to lock up the back brakes as well. I have gone back and checked to see if I have the brake shoes installed correctly but after one of the suggestions it is making me second guess myself so will once again check to see if installed correctly. Smaller shoe to the front. Will readjust brakes once again and see if that helps.

 

Check the swept surface of the drums too. If it's rough, wouldn't hurt to have them turned.

 

The drums are brand new and their surface is smooth. I went back to make sure that I had installed the pads correctly with smaller pad surface on front side of each drum brake and I had installed them correctly. I readjusted both sides alittle tighter than I did the first time and now the brake shake is almost completely gone. I think that one of my brake adjusters is not holding adjustment like it should so am going to order new brake adjuster and see if that helps. Thanks for the helpful information.

 

Get hardware kits for the brakes, I think there is more than one....... one should be springs and such, the other will be the adjuster stuff. I think.....

 

Yup... a left and a right hardware kit, and a spring kit... three bags of goodies to do everything... ~$10 each.

 

Got new rear left & right hardware kits with adjusters and replaced rear brake shoes again and the shake is gone. Thanks for the help.