Rear drum brake repair
- Thread starter taco John
- Start date
Tacoma06
Well-Known Member
If you use your parking brake. This should tighten springs in brakes. If brake pedal allows you to push to floor knowing you've pumped your parking brake. Then brakes need work. If you have the right tools this is pretty easy job. Without right tools, you need lots of time and patiences.
Pads are cheap and most auto parts places will re-surface the drums if material allows for this. Otherwise new drums are like $40-$60.
Pads are cheap and most auto parts places will re-surface the drums if material allows for this. Otherwise new drums are like $40-$60.
taco John
Well-Known Member
Toyota says its because drums last longer and that dirt won't get stuck in between the pads.
They also said the trucks had a specific payload.... then issued a yellow sticker stating new payload capacity right?
Drums are cheaper than disc brakes and they are good enough for the rear. Rear disc brakes are just a selling point aimed at a public that doesn't know better that Toyota hasn't felt the need to bother with.
The drums themselves usually don't need to be resurfaced. You just won't generate the extreme conditions needed to cause severe heat checking etc on a passenger vehicle. The only way to know is to pull the drums off and inspect the drums and linings, which is also the only way to know the condition of the linings.. If you are going to the trouble to pull the drums on a truck with 180k miles on it, you might as well have the new linings and get the hardware kits for each side and do the whole job.
Yes, $10.00 worth of cheap brake tools will save you $100.00 worth of time and aggravation and bandaids for the skinned knuckles you will get trying to do it with vicegrips. A can of brake clean is good too. It keeps the dust down while you are scrubbing the bearing surfaces on the backing plate etc clean. Brake dust = bad even if it isn't made of asbestos anymore.
Do one side at a time so you can refer to the other side since you will forget which spring goes where etc.
Back the adjuster off before you try to pull the drum as the lining will usually grab the drum and not let it come off. I've seen supposed mechanics heat and beat drums to get them off when all they had to do was back the adjuster off so the lip on the drum would clear the lining. Telling them that just made them more determined to do it "their way", at least until I was out of sight. Sometimes the drum slides right off without backing off the adjuster. If it won't slide off with a little wiggle, you can heat and beat the drum and it won't come off unless you crack the drum in pieces.
When I was a kid, I did plenty of drum brake jobs with vice grips and cleaning and reusing the old springs etc. Now that I'm older, and I'm not broke, I think it's worth the extra few bucks to use the right tools and new springs.
Put a dab of neversieze on the adjuster threads whether you reuse the old ones or not.
The drums themselves usually don't need to be resurfaced. You just won't generate the extreme conditions needed to cause severe heat checking etc on a passenger vehicle. The only way to know is to pull the drums off and inspect the drums and linings, which is also the only way to know the condition of the linings.. If you are going to the trouble to pull the drums on a truck with 180k miles on it, you might as well have the new linings and get the hardware kits for each side and do the whole job.
Yes, $10.00 worth of cheap brake tools will save you $100.00 worth of time and aggravation and bandaids for the skinned knuckles you will get trying to do it with vicegrips. A can of brake clean is good too. It keeps the dust down while you are scrubbing the bearing surfaces on the backing plate etc clean. Brake dust = bad even if it isn't made of asbestos anymore.
Do one side at a time so you can refer to the other side since you will forget which spring goes where etc.
Back the adjuster off before you try to pull the drum as the lining will usually grab the drum and not let it come off. I've seen supposed mechanics heat and beat drums to get them off when all they had to do was back the adjuster off so the lip on the drum would clear the lining. Telling them that just made them more determined to do it "their way", at least until I was out of sight. Sometimes the drum slides right off without backing off the adjuster. If it won't slide off with a little wiggle, you can heat and beat the drum and it won't come off unless you crack the drum in pieces.
When I was a kid, I did plenty of drum brake jobs with vice grips and cleaning and reusing the old springs etc. Now that I'm older, and I'm not broke, I think it's worth the extra few bucks to use the right tools and new springs.
Put a dab of neversieze on the adjuster threads whether you reuse the old ones or not.