Whilst I was fitting fat meats to the Cambridge I saw this. Those are the nuts on the backside of the rear brake's lower pivot adjusters. They weren't even finger tight. These are supposed to be torqued to 55-75 ft/lbs when adjustments are completed.

Dealing with old school drum brakes isn't hard, but it's different than newer style drums. Step one is getting a factory service manual. Sometimes you can find video instruction help as well. The link below is the factory training filmstrips put on video. You won't have the tools they call for but you can make do if you think about it.

On these older Mopars the rear drum and hub are one assembly. The axle is what they call a two piece unit, the flange and the shaft are not one piece like newer vehicles have. If you watch the video you will see how to pull the hub with a puller. If you do not have a puller you can loosen the castellated nut and take it for a drive making multiple left and right hand turns to try to loosen the hub up.

The castellated nut holding the hub to the axle shaft is supposed to be torqued to a minimum of 142 ft/lbs. Mine was finger tight, if it weren't for the cotter pin I suspect the nut would have come off. Remember the trick I mentioned above for loosening the hub without a puller? Well that is essentially what happened here. I was able to back the nut off as in the video, put the tires back on and put her on the ground. I then pushed the back of the car sideways several times and you could see the hubs pop loose. I suspect if it weren't for the cotter pin the hub would have come off and the tire with it causing major damage.

You use the best tools you can. I first used Stahlwille tools when I worked on wind turbines. Awesome tools with a matching price. Once I had all my brake adjustments done I torqued the bolts down. That 142 ft/lbs minimum the axle shaft nut needed to be torqued to? That means you torque it to 142 ft/lbs then you keep turning it clockwise till you line up the cotter pin hole and put in NEW cotter pins. Make sure whatever torque wrench you get will also torque counter clockwise. Your driver side wheel bolts are left hand thread. That means lefty tighty, righty loosey.

The difference between a professional and a hack is the attention to detail a professional puts forth. In working on this vehicle I have run across numerous hacks. Some unsafe such as the loose brake hardware and axle nut. Others were just plain laziness. The link below will show you how to properly do cotter pins the Rolls Royce way. Just for the record I am not a professional web page maker, all the mistakes here are mine.

After I finished the rear brakes you know I had to check the fronts. They were way out of adjustment as well. When doing routine brake maintenance, every oil change is a good idea, you are supposed to start with the brake pedal free play adjustment. When you replace the shoes or have a seriously misadjusted brake setup you have to do the major then minor shoe adjustments first. I went from needing two full pumps of the pedal to get brakes to two inches. One of the symptoms the FSM gives for needing multiple pumps is misadjusted brakes.