New member, need advice on 89 b2200

Hey guys been reading through posts all night now, figured i would introduce myself and ask a few questions...

First, trick recently purchased, put 3k on it. . New alter, new brake master, previous owner put new slave in. New pads up front, bench bled master that i put in, bled front then rear, had no brakes before, decent brakes after, but still think theres not enough pressure being applied and when I'm going downhill at 40mph even pumping the brakes they smoke... also i have no handbrake, i adjusted the cable in the cab but it didn't help.. tips?
Second i started noticing a stutter on acceleration, and white/blue smoke on starting in the am, so i bought a hg seal kit (not my first choice but was in a pinch) i plan to do the HG later this week. After doing the HG seal i overheat, slowly..i think its air pocket in the cooling sys, so I'll post tomorrow after throwing a jack under her and bleeding fort the third time. while i was doing the HG Seal, i ran water thru the heater core, but after i reconnected the hoses it spread water inside the cab once she got hot so i bypassed, is that fairly common on the late models? Any advice is welcome, this thing was rough when i got it but its a little better now..thanks in advance

I'd manually adjust the rear brakes through the adjustment hole in the backplates. That will help the handbrake feel; I've had my '88 for 21 years and have never needed to monkey with the cable.

Sounds like a bad heater core or similar. But jack up the front of the truck, open the radiator cap, run for like 20 minutes, adding fluid as necessary, to bleed out all the air from the cooling system. No, I've never had any heater/heater core issues with mine.

OK, update, cooling system is working good, burpin it was the trick, but theres more ..much more. So last night we got some rain, and I'm going to get onto us 1 bam yellow light, i turn to check to my left . Clear . Turn right and all i see is the truck on front of me on his brakes hard. I follow suit, but it instantly locks up and breaks loose. My grill and bumper are toast, almost hit the radiator, lost my d/s turn signal and h/l. His rear bumper went under and everyone was OK. Reason (tore my rear brakes apart after that last night, in the rain, to find d/s rear pistons were froze, and i had no shoe on the back and a full shoe on the front. Switched to the passenger side, pistons actuate fine but the shoes on front and back were about a 16th of an inch thick...havent pulled the heater core yet. so my CEL comes on at sustained rpm/mph, 40mph and up. If i decel or accel it goes off for a while but comes back on, tranny fluid maybe? Checked oil, its good, and cooling sys i just got done with. How do i fix my handbrake btw, i tightened the stop nut at the handle, now what..and does anyone have a copy of the service manual? I know its a lot, thx in advance

Once you replace the rear brake shoes and manually adjust the rear brakes, your hand brake will work, and work better. You may need to back off the adjustment on the handbrake cable first though, to do the repair. The front brakes are not involved with the parking brake. Do a thorough job, turn/replace any rotors/drums as necessary, and check the wheel cylinders for leakage too. There is only one bleeder valve in the rear, on the driver side wheel cylinder.

Rgr, I figured that one out, although I still haven't manually adjusted the brakes yet. I did see a small rubber access on the back side of the drum, and the clicker was right in front of it, so I assume that's where I adjust them right? And yes the hand brake does work better, but needs adjusting too.I ordered the HG kit yesterday, adjust tips on f doing those?

Yes, adjust through that access hole once the rubber plug is removed. You'll need a second tool to push the lock lever if you go too tight, or whenever a drum has trouble coming off due to a ridge.

Well, I hope you ordered a FelPro head gasket set (or Mazda), others have not been real happy with knock-off brands. I did mine 4 years ago, I used two wooden dowels to help align the head as I lowered it into place, and my advice is to torque correctly, and do a re-torque at about 500 miles in and an oil change. Biggest tip is to change the two relatively inaccessible coolant bypass hoses on the passenger side of the engine; these are important, and hard to access when all is together.
8mm i.d. by-pass hose to – underside of Intake Manifold to Pipe on passenger side: Mazda FE87-13-116 $6, or S-shaped Gates 18100 (cut to length, special order O’Reillys), S-shaped Gates 18100 or Gates 28408

10mm i.d. by-pass hose parallel to cylinder head almost-straight hose going toward the /firewall
Mazda FE1H-15-288 $6 or Gates 28409

10mm U-shaped Bypass hose Mazda FE65-15-284B Gates 18206 Dayco 71348

Heater hoses Dayco 87713 and 87712 special order AutoZone ($7 and $29) Gates 18900 and 18899
special order O’Reillys

Ty!