Cylinder pins.
 

Good morning everyone, trying to replace rear drum brakes/ spring kit on a 97 ranger xl 4x4 regular cab 3.0 liter. Took off old drums and didn't find the wheel cylinder piston pins / plungers. Can't even find a part number. Did they not have them at any time? Sorry if that's a crazy ?. Never experienced cylinders like this without pins.
please help.

Welcome to the forum

Yes, you need them, they are called shoe link pins, or just link pins

And you reuse them, maybe they were stuck on the old shoes?

You can buy them but I don't have that part number, they were pretty standard on Ford models as far as I know

Good article here, with pictures of link pins, 1996 Ranger, so will be same as your 1997: https://www.ranger-forums.com/engine...-brakes-81906/

yeah that's what I thought also. But no, they'rethey'on either side.