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Hi Mike,
The brake shoe arrangement is a fairly common one that was used on a number of european models with rear drum brakes as well as discs. I remember my old '79 Opel Ascona having this arrangement. I can't see that there is anything intrinsically wrong with it but the arrangement is prone to requiring tight tolerences. If the adjustment is spot on then the bottom of the shoes will travel only a small distance before it all locks. That should translate to two clicks on the star adjuster and around a max of 6 clicks at the handbrake lever after everything is set.
I've never had a drum/disc combination near to the wear limit of the drum as the disc always wears much quicker than the handbrake portion. Afterall there should be no movement in normal use that would promote wear. Similarly shoes should last almost the lifetime of the vehicle, my Merc has done 270,000 on the original hand brake shoes and I periodically forget to take the hand brake off when I drive away, for a few yards at least. I think you might find new disc along with some shoes will cure the ailment as it will get rid of the accumulated tolerences.
I'm not exactly sure as to the BMW vehicle the shoes are off but I was in GSF and asked to look at some 5 series shoes that were identical. I think I had to drill some holes for one of the springs as the spring length was different but that was very minor compared with the £20+ I saved.
Clive
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