Sticking rear brakes

[Effieman]

After having a shop do the rear brakes on my 98 Ranger, my parking brake started sticking. I could rev up to about 3K, dump the clutch and usually they would let go. But then the brakes would be real grabby on the first use, upon leaving the parking lot. Took it back to the shop and they asked if I'd been parking it in water as everything was rusted. After they fixed it again it worked for a year of so, but now it's doing it again.
When trying to back out the other day it was stuck, and for some reason, before revving and dumping the clutch, I decided to try going forward. It easily moved the few inches before the tires hit the curb. After that it easily backed up just like it usually does.
I'm not taking it back to that shop...Any ideas on what could be the cause of this?

 

[Dirtman]

Depends what they replaced. Did they just slap shoes on it or did they actually replace all the hardware. Could need new hardware.

Also all the metal to metal contact points inside the brake drum need to be greased or they can seize. So maybe they never did that.

Also some cheap semi metallic shoes are just crappy and prone to flash rusting faster than normal. Quality shoes may help.

 

[sgtsandman]

I would look at the parking brake cable too. Was the parking brake functional before the brake work?

 

[Mike Tonon]

This is what happened with mine. Looks like there’s a few posts mentioning this issue. I would recommend never forcing it to release. I bent my backing plates doing this and they’re the NLA 10” plates. I had to track two down. I couldn’t even find a passenger side plate. I had to convert one driver side into a passenger side. ...Lots of labor, time and $ later, the brakes are good again!

 

[don4331]

The brake backing plates are rather "susceptible" to getting "wear" grooves. When the pads drop into the wear grooves, you get binding. If the grooves aren't too bad, a little scotch brite buffing and pads will slide back cleanly*. If grooves get pronounced, you will need to get more drastic.

*I like to apply a couple coats of wax over the locations where the pads make contact to ensure smooth action/prevent rust on the exposed metal.