So my truck's ebrake doesn't work at all. While I was replacing the rear rotors and pads I noticed the shoes are pretty much rusted solid. I bought new shoes and a hardware kit.

The FSM says to remove the axle shafts to make it more accessible to work. Its probably not a bad idea as there didn't seem to be much room behind the hub. I'm going to pull the shafts (I have new fluid for the diff anyways), I will replace the seals for the rear axles while they are out. My question is what about the bearings? I have 170k on the truck, my guess is they are original bearings. Are they prone to failure and worth changing since I have to tear apart the rear of truck anyways?

 

Hmm good point. If the bearings are cheap enough and they certainly look easy enough to change, do it as part of preventative maintenance.
Al.

 

The rear brakes go thru hell back there in salty conditions.
You could of changed the e brake hardware without removing the axle. If you already removed it. It's a good idea to change the seals. If the axle bearings are not causing any problems personally I would not touch them.

 

The pinion seal is shot too I figure I'll replace all the stuff while its open. One of the front diff seals is shot too.

 

The pinion seal doesn't require sxles to be pulled, but while you have the fluid drained, it's a good idea. Depending on the inlcination of the truck, some could leak out when changing pinion seal.
Use THIS guide as a refernce for changing your pinion seal. POST #18
NAPA sells a double lip pinion seal and I'd reccomend using a double lip seal if you can find one.

As for your axle bearings, I'd def change them if your pulling the axles out. You can reent a hammer style puller from Advance or Autozone if you have one around? Take a look at the way your axle seals are in there. Are they flush, sticking out some, reccesed slightly...etc This will tell you how far the new one's will go in when they are installed so that your not wondering if they went in too far or are sticking out too much. You'll need to buy some emery cloth to sand down the axles where the bearings and seals come into contact with. The bearing area needs very light scuff, but the rust ring on the outside of the seal needs some attention because not all seals will line up exact and if the rust ring is in the middle of your seal it will cause leaking if not sanded smooth.
One more thing, and I know this maybe going too far for you. Take a look at your dust shield covers. Are they rusted bad? Now is the time to replace them, or brush off the mild surface rust and shoot them with some high temp black primer. That's all.
Good luck.

 

I did actually get the double lip seal from napa. Read about it on here a while ago. Probably a post you made .

Also, there's really no such thing as going to far. I prefer to do things right. But actually the dust shields aren't too bad.

 

Make sure you rotate the carrier enough to look at all the spider gear surfaces and make sure they are in good shape. Any hotspots or worming or flaking and they need to be replaced.

 

Are the napa axle seals worth picking up too? How are their bearings? The seals are under 10 and the bearings about 25 each, unless I need 'repair' bearings for about 40 each.