Hey y'all,
Ever since I bought my truck the parking brake has not worked, only slight engagement and doesn't even come close to holding the truck in place.
Also when I let it up with the release handle, I have to pull it up with my foot or else it won't come up all the way (not enough back tension?)
Does this sound like a simple shoe replacement?
Your description matches the condition of my truck when I decided to do a simple shoe replacement.
I did not find the parking brake shoe replacement all that simple. Removing the driver side drum/rotor was a PIA even with the shoes completely (it appeared) retracted. It was caught by a lip on the drum that had been worn in by the shoes. It finally came off with a combination of hammering, prying, cannon barrage, tactical atomic missile fire, etc. The passenger side drum/rotor pulled off without protest.
On the passenger side I found a leaky seal. This is not uncommon for these trucks. Between the hung up drum (with requisite rear rotor replacement) and the rear seal replacement (with requisite differential fluid change) the work went way past "simple".
It's likely you will want to replace the cables. Also, all of the lever steel will be frozen to a degree and will require soaking/scraping/wire brush cleaning for the mechanism to freely operate when reassembled.
When the replacement was done I found that the parking brake did not hold the truck in Drive very much past 1500rpm (Supposedly this engineering was not designed to.) It did not take very long for the poor pedal return condition you describe to recur as well. Occasionally I need to boost the pedal with my foot as I did before service.
The parking brake on my truck is applied daily. Use it or lose it, I figure
