The brake drum will not go back on after I installed new brakes on my 1969 vw bug, this on the left front. What could be the problem?

shoes should be adjusted all the way down, you can star wheel adjust them back--in fact you'll need to do this anyway, but reduce the amount that the drum will have to encompass by minizing...also you could open the bleeder and squish them together, then bleed the system when it's done!

X2. Couldn't have explained it any better

if one side go's on and the other side does not then you have the shoes on wrong there is what we say a leading shoe and a trailing shoe so basicly if you are looking straight at it then the shoes (pads) will not be perfectly straight across ,,,, how do i explain this lets see if it was a clock thenclock should look like it is leaning or turned so instead of twelve oclock straight up it should look like twelve is is leaning at one oclock. one shoe is smaller then the other and the small one goes toward the front

True Rob but wouldn't it not even install in the first place? I mean if he tried to put the longer shoe in the front it wouldn't fit in there to begin with. Then the smaller, shorter shoe would be all dangly wangly 'cause the 'holders' for lack of a better word, on the backing plate, are too far apart to get the springs on the shoe,,, Right? I'm asking, not stating as fact