Seriously dumb question about frozen/rusted brakes

Hi,

In between gigs, and I've let my semi tractor sit for a little while. Brakes on both drive axles on one side froze or rusted to the drum. I managed to break free one brake by the classic hard brake application repeated a few times, and a slight jerk and rocking. But one brake is still frozen solid. I crawled underneath to wack the hell out of it, but the #### thing has a full dust shield so I can't hit the drum hard and keep whacking the shield too because the space is extremely limited. And that's with just a small 2 lb ball peen hammer, no chance to use my mini sledge. Naturally the truck is backed unto my driveway, and I don't have a jack or axle stands around the house, much less a 1" drive impact wrench. I'm fairly big and there's just not enough room for me under there to try to take off the shields (if I they can be).

I have thought of using a hammer and chisel, but fear making a big divot on the side of the drum. Same with a hammer and crow bar, underneath would be just too awkward and through the wheels would again leave a nasty divot. No way to access the drum from above. I've even seen that brake free safety bar thing. Seems good, but nowhere around to get one.

So can anybody give me any ideas on how to whack the drum some other way?

My thanks in advance.

 

Hi, just waking up (am out on the left coast).

I have tried fooling with the cam, and all methods suggested above. except for the hot water trick. It was 75 degrees yesterday so it's not frozen by ice. But I do thank y'all.

I'm down to trying to find maybe a 2 foot steel rod 1 inch in diameter, stick it through both wheels and try and catch the 1/4" edge of the drum I can see in there. Whack the snot out of it with my mini sledge. No aluminum places locally, although that rod would be a lot lighter. As for steel, there's a rebar place not too far from here. I thought of my strap bar, but the small end just isn't long enough to get through both wheels.

Sadly caging the brake wouldn't help, I think the shoes are welded by rust to the drum. Very aggravating.

Another nice feature of this problem is the truck is on a slope. So I've had to put it in reverse and shut down the motor and then use my 4 chocks. I made sure I had all my extremities inside the rails while I was under it, although my head and that differential became good friends anyways.

 

Of course, and reverse too. That's how I rocked it and released one of them.

And even dragging it for 20 feet doesn't break it free. But I don't want to bugger everything else, so not doing that again.