Need some help with brake issue
not sure if that was enough to cause them to wear like that,
Nope that's got nothing to do with it. That wear pattern is ALL on the mismatch between the drums and the shoes.
i always use the parking brake so i figured they would stay adjusted
and nope. the parking brake has very little to do with adjusting. The system only works when backing up, at the application of the brake pedal. As the shoes, all tied together with the springs and such, counter rotate in reverse, the lil cable operated adjuster tries to add one click of adjustment, every time you tap and release the brakes. When the adjustment is completed in this manner, the cable deal runs out of adjusting range and no more clicks will be added until the shoes wear enough to allow another clic.
Once adjusted the Parking brake cannot make the system work.
But if the system was grossly out of adjustment, I suppose the parking brake could pull in a couple of clics, but again, I think the car would have to be backing up. Meh, maybe not.
they were about 6-8 clicks out of adjustment
That sounds sorta normal, if you mean 6 to 8 from as far as it goes. But if 6 to 8 from just barely making the shoes be dragging then that would have been a LITTLE on the loose side, not too big a deal.
