So the left rear wheel on my '63 Valiant 200 has been hanging up from time to time, when I bought the car the previous owner told me he thought it had a bad wheel cylinder, so I wasn't suprised.

The rear wheel cylinders are one of the few things that the local parts place has in stock for this thing (mainly because Ford used the same part on Rangers until '02) so I picked one up today to change it out.

I jacked the car up and started to pull the drum off, it wouldn't budge! I tried tapping the rear lip to brake it free but it just won't go. It does wiggle a bit and it feels like the brake shoes are holding the drum on. I know someone makes a drum puller but I don't have one and have been unsuccessful at locating one around town.

After a little deeper digging on here I managed to find a post or two about similar problems where the OP was told to loosen up the adjuster. Makes sense to me, but how?

I'm working outside with limited tools and it's had to get at the back of the drum, so I'd like to go at it with as much knowledge in advance as I can get. I'll likely be working mostly by feel I assume.

Fill me in on what I need to know

You need a drum brake adjustor tool, sometimes called a "brake spoon". It goes through the slot at the bottom of the backing plate and you use it like a lever to turn the adjustor starwheel.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Ah, now that makes sense. Once again Dan saves the day. Will I be rolling the wheel up or down? I had also read someone warn that some of the adjusters only adjust one way...tighter, would this be one of those cases?

The warning you got was garbureted (there's a Canadianism for ya!). The '64+ cars have self-adjusting brakes. The self-adjustor lever is positioned such that the adjustor starwheels are free to rotate in only one direction — the direction that tightens the adjustment by expanding the brake shoes. If you want to slack off the adjustment, you push a slim screwdriver through the slot next to the brake spoon (usually through the other slot; there are two) and use it to hold the adjustor lever off the starwheel while you back the starwheel off. But your '63 wouldn't originally have been equipped with self-adjustors. See here for info on adding this time-saving safety feature.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.