Mark could you expand on the stand-alone parking brake procedure?

UPDATE having had the car out a bit... it'* improved but not improved enough. I think the drums should be biting a little harder than they are. Also discovered a large rust hole in the passenger-side rear wheelwell. Ask me how I reacted to that. ARRGHHH

What I meant by "stand alone" is adjusting the parking brake as a seperate procedure apart from adjusting the rear brake shoes, two different evolutions.
Pat, I've never heard of removing the drums to adjust brake shoes. Unless things have changed drasticly over the years.

These car don't have slots to slip the brkae adjusters (spoon) in. My Olds is tha same way.

there is no access hole in the back of the drums...However Sonoma has found some hole in there somewhere...i have never been able to find it

Yes, I'm behind the times. There used to be an access slot (elongated) on the backing plate of the rear & front brake assembly for that matter. The slot had an envronmental seal that had to be removed, then you could slip the brake adjusting spoon in to make turns on the star wheel adjuster. Most of my cars in the past 15 years or so have had 4 wheel disc brakes so I've been out of the loop so to speak when it comes to drum brake technology.

on the my car it doesn;t have one. and i dont think any 92-99 has it. maybe the onlder ones do.

i do know what u mean though cuz my celberity had a slot for that.

My 1974 Pontiac Ventura had 4-wheel drum brakes. The only way to maintain good pedal pressure was to manually adust them at about every oil change. For those that are asking for a description, the adjuster is essentially a threaded screw in a matching barrel that is wedged in-between the two brake shoes where they meet at the bottom. By unthreading the screw, it expands the shoes so they fit tighter to the drum. Less motion to reach the drum = less pedal motion. Sometimes on some cars, you can't get the rear drums off because they're so tight to the drums, you have to thread the screw inwards to back the shoes in, away from the drum. I had the parking brake cable break on my 1978 Bonneville with the parking brake engaged. The only way I could get the wheel to turn was to thread the self adjuster all the way closed.

There'* a spring-loaded foot that engages the outside edge of the starwheel on the threaded screw, that turns it a fraction of a turn as the foot travels down when you apply brakes while in Reverse. So if you can back-up in a parking lot and apply the brakes several times, this can give you a little adjustment. But like others have said, if they get gunked up they can slip or seize, I've also seen the starwheels get sheared off on the side by the adjuster foot when the self-adjuster screw is seized. When you do a rear brake job, you clean and lubricate all of these parts, and replace anything that'* worn.

So the wheel turning DOWN as seen from the outside of the drum, adjusts the shoes outwards for better braking. Most cars (but apparently not ours) have a knockout plate on the BACK side of the wheel hub, so you can access the adjuster starwheel, and from the BACK side, you adjust this wheel UP (as others have mentioned) to adjust your brakes without pulling the drums. Likewise, from the BACK side, you adjust the wheel DOWN to back the shoes away from the drum, as I had to do with my stuck parking brake.

Overall, disc brakes are a lot less of an issue, with very few moving parts, and they don't require manual adjustments.

that is correct, you cannot access the star wheel from the outside. The only knockout is in back of the e-brake actuator.