Pontiac Repair: 02 Pontiac Montana Rear wheel seized, pontiac montana, rubber hammer

Question

2002 Pontiac Montana L I have an '02 Pontiac Montana front wheel drive with a seizing left rear wheel.  Just bought a hub bearing thinking it may be the hub but now I'm not sure.  I just took off the wheel and drum (after a little rubber hammer action to get the drum off).  Now that I have the drum off I can easily move the bearing so I'm not sure if the hub seizing is my problem.  There appears to be a very light oily residue (old brake grease?)inside the assembly. The pads look to have about 3/8" or 6-8mm of pad left and the residue is on the pads.  What do I do from here?  We basically don't use the parking brake either so I dont think the parking brake is the problem.  Could I just have a dust buildup?  When my wife tried backing up last night the back left side would raise, the wheel would roll slightly and then seize.  What do you think the problem is?

Answer
Hi Patrick:

Cool that you can insert pictures, That is the first time anyone has done this and I have answered well over a thousand questions... Well from the picture I can see the problem. The wheel cylinder is blown out and it leaked brake fluid onto the shoes and the shoes are grabbing the drum causing the wheel to seize/lock up. you need to replace that wheel cylinder and the shoes. I'd suggest you replace the one on the other side as well if this one went bad it's not long before the other side goes bad too.

P.S. How did you insert the picture to the question just for my own FYI..
Good luck :}