Rear Rotor Won't Go Back On

Little confused here, I took off my rotors and calipers to paint them ( rotor hub only) due to rust. Since my rotors are pretty much new after I painted the hub I went to put the rotors back on the car. These are the exact same rotors. The fonts went on fine. Had trouble with both rears. I let down the emergency brake and that allowed the passenger side rear to go on easy. But for the life of me I cannot get the driver rear rotor to go back on. I read the article on adjusting the brake shoes so the rotor can fit over them but I got kind of lost in the article. Can someone in laypersons terms tell me what is happening here and how can it possible be fixed. I have all three rotors on save the driver's rear Thanks

These rotors were on the car before painting? If so - the parking brake shouldn't need adjusting. It seems likely that the brake shoes for the parking brake aren't fully retracted on the side that the rotor won't go back on. I think carefully looking at the assembly and wiggling it around a bit might allow them to move back where they should be. If you REALLY need to adjust the parking brake - I'd suggest reading up on how to do it on alldatadiy.com - it's fairly simple, but would take some time to explain. There is basically an expanding device between the one end of each two brake shoes - it has a "star" wheel (you'll see why it's called that) that can be turned to make the device longer or shorter, pushing the shoes out toward the inside of the rotor or allowing them to move inward away from the rotor . This is supposed to be adjusted using a screwdriver through a lug-bolt hole after the rotor is installed, but to get the rotor on you can probably make it shorter just by turning the star-wheel in the correct direction. Which article did you read about doing the adjustment? Can you provide a URL link to it?

Don Thanks so much for your prompt response. I am following your lead and how would I go about moving the brake shoes that may not be fully retracted? Here is the article I read about the parking brake adjustment, But like you said I really do not believe that is the case. I want to go the route of retracting the brake shoes if you can give me guidance on that Porsche Boxster Parking Brake Adjustment- 986 / 987 (1997-08) - Pelican Parts Technical Article Is your e-brake not working too well? Put it back into adjustment in less than 30 minutes. www.pelicanparts.com

I'll try to add some illustrations tomorrow (it's 1:20AM here..) If you face the brake shoes, put your left hand on the friction surface of the left one, right hand on the right one and try to squeeze them together. See if they move that way. If so - probably the rotor will go back on. If they don't and the rotor still isn't going back on, post it here and I'll spot it tomorrow and spend a bit of time on it. The Pelican article is good, but it's leaving out some basic info like how the brake shoes are held on, and where the springs should be.

Illustration 1: The part circled in blue is the adjuster. It's shown disassembled in this illustration. It goes between the upper two ends of the brake shoes. Making it shorter in length will move the shoes in toward the axle and allow the rotor to go on. The ends of the adjuster might be very LIGHTLY greased where it contacts the ends of the brake shoes - there is a slot in each end that the brake shoe fits into. DO make certain the star wheel turns fairly easily, if not - removal, disassembly, cleaning and greasing the adjuster might be worthwhile. The springs #4 and #5 are supposed to pull the shoes toward the axle. Springs #6 hold the brake shoes to the backing plate of the assembly. These are rotated to remove them if the shoes have to come off. DO make note of the orientation of the hook on them if disassembling - you want to get them back on the same way. I don't think you'll need to remove these. Parts #8 through #10 are the parts that connect to the parking brake cable, and move the bottom of the shoes futher apart (into contact with the inside of the drum on the rotor) when the cable is pulled. There are a few pivot points in that mechanism that are worth making sure they have a very light coating of some high-temperature grease (Optimoly should work..) Not so much grease as might dribble off and contaminate the drum surface and then the shoes. Pivot points are circled in red. Do make sure there is a bit of play in the handbrake cable (#7) at this end when the handbrake lever is all the way down. That should do it. I don't have mine apart or I'd take a few photos and notes on them.. I did find this video for doing the parking brake on a 986 - which is basically identical to the 987. And this is a video that explains adjusting the brake shoes:

Don thanks so much for your very detailed instructions. Most helpful. You were correct that the shoes are blocking the rotor from going back on. I have been working with the adjuster but I have one simple question. When trying to retract the shoes away from the drum do I ROTATE DOWN ON THE ADJUSTER OR ROTATE UP to bring the shoes closer together. Once I know what direction to f=go with the adjuster I think I will be okay

Don: I watched carefully the two videos you sent and the second one explained well the adjuster and its movements. I think I got it. rotating the adjuster down retracts the shoes. I am going to try that

You are correct. On every drum brake adjuster I've seen, the star wheel has a reverse thread. That means turning counterclockwise will tighten the wheel, thus making it shorter and allowing the shoes to retract. Closely inspect the point where the shoes engage in the adjuster. Make sure they both are engaged in the indentations at the ends. Just removing the disc (drum of the PBrake) should not have changed the adjustment. More likely, something is out of position.

If I can trust my notes from when I did it, on the right side going up retracts the pads, and on the left side going down retracts the pads. But like Bruce said, make sure both pads are properly seated first.

It looks like you might have figured it out, but just to clarify, did you try swapping the rotors left to right? The inner drum could easily be worn differently on each side and if they came off easily, they should go on easily. I haven’t done the brakes on my Cayman , but I just peeked at them and the rotors don’t look directional on my car, so it would be easy to swap them up by mistake.

Customyota is correct, the discs are the same. He made a good suggestion to try swapping them in case they were switched.

I want to thank everyone for stepping in and assisting me on something that was over my head. I turned a couple of hours job into a three day nightmare. But you guys bailed me out. I finally got all the rotors on. Interesting, one of you guys cleared up a confusion because I could not understand why the adjuster had to be rotated different ways on the different sides. I thought I did something wrong and was glad to see that what Id did was correct. Can you guys let me know what I need to do next now that I have the rotors on. It is evident that all of the adjustments I did to get the rear rotors on probably threw everything off. Should I be doing some adjustments ti the brakes now everything is in place. And, if so, how should I go about making the adjustments. Bear with me I am making progress

I assume all you have to do is what I would describe as an emergency/parking brake adjustment routine. You now have a pretty good understanding of what actually happens when you pull that lever. It expands those brake shoes and they rub up against the hub to create friction. I'm guessing that primarily you want ZERO rub with the lever not engaged. And you probably want very similar amounts of engagement on both sides if you were to actually need the brakes in an "emergency", although 99% of the time it is just a parking brake and you would never sense that one wheel was braking harder than the other. Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

Snakebitten thanks fir your prompt reply

The procedure from the manual is basically tighten the adjuster until it locks the wheel, then back it off four notches. Obviously do this with the handle down.