8-3/4 hard to turn the wheels

Good news, so far... The mechanic did say the green button had been removed, and that it is much harder to turn a wheel on an 8-3/4 than a 8-1/4 by hand. So it looks like its okay. I will still probably pop the shaft off to check for ease after the shaft is off. I can only work from 5-6am to 9-10am and from about 8pm on due to the heat here. Seems like Mr Sunshine has been taking steroids or something, but more likely it is radiation cause we don't have an Ozone Layer anymore.

So yeah, I will go ahead and replace the shoes, and the wheel cylinders too. The guy I got them from said they were brand new 8 years go, so that is long enough for the cups in the wheel cylinders to dry up a bit.

I am also, per advice from my mechanic, drive to the top of a medium hill, put 'er in neutral and coast down the hill, then apply the brakes. If the noise, that sounds like a strange scraping noise, occurs, then it is the shoes, not the diff.

Thanks for everyone's help. I appreciate it. I was having the hung jury effect over these two problems.