Well, I have officially given up.

We bought an '89 Ford Tempo with part of our tax money, and it's a decent car in most respects.

Last week, however, the back left tire seized up on me and wouldn't rotate. A few calls told me it was the brakes.

Well, I've done disk brakes before, so I figured drum brakes would be no biggie. WRONG! The left brakes, by the way, had basically exploded inside the drum. It was a mess, not pretty at all.

Four trips to the parts store and following a marathon four hour attempt to hook the parking brake up on the right side, I have now relegated this to the category of "things I can't do". Not won't. Not don't want to. In this case, the only word that applies is CAN'T, as in "physically incapable of".

Boy do I wish I was one of those folks who could do these things. Literally, I put changing drum brakes BELOW changing head gaskets (I have experience with both in the past 3 months).