3rd Gen Drum Brake Nonsense

Good Morning All,

Been fighting against these factory rear drum brakes for almost 6 months now. I followed the adjustment directions from Toyota and went from full lock-up, to backing off 15 "star-wheel teeth" and the drums feel rumbly when braking at high-speed. Go to tighten them later... and they usually feel much better when braking on the highway but within a week they start squeaking/squealing once-per-rotation while light braking at low speed. Makes me think they need to be more expanded to make full contact w/ the drums?

Drives me nuts that a truck w/ <40,000 miles sounds like a woods-beater pulling up to work.

Feels like I can never get them to adjust correctly. Any tips? If I can't get them dialied-in soon... thinking of droping some $$ on the S.O.S. Performance Read Disc Conversion Kit and just be done w/ it.

 

Have you had them checked for them being out of round?

 

Remove the drum, clean the drum and brake assembly with brake cleaner. Apply some anti-seize where the shoes touch the backing plate.

As a prior owner of the SOS kit, I'm not sure it's something I would purchase again.

 

@fxntime - Have not had the drums checked for any eccentricity. Had new drums installed from the dealership when I bought the truck so they only have probably 10,000m on them. Truck was sitting and old drums looks rusted.

@crashdb - Good to know about the SOS kit... Out of curiousty, what was wrong w/ it? Seems like a pretty comprehensive kit/straightfoward install? I agree, I think at this point I'm due for a full drum assembly breakdown/cleaning/lubing to ensure there isn't any damaged components (did this maybe 6 months ago, but issue persisted alomst immediately after purchasing the vehicle.

 

I wouldn't say there's anything really wrong with it. I had it on my Tacoma. It worked and all. I broke some stuff on the trails and replacement parts were expensive. I think it boiled down to return on investment. It just wasn't worth the cost to me.

 

@crashdb Gotcha gotcha, makes sense. Thanks for the feedback.

 

If you use your parking brake all the time in above-freezing dry weather, that adjusts the shoes to drums.

 

@eurowner So I've been told by the dealership. Is that still true on 3rd gen's? Perhaps I just need to turn the radio up for a few months without screing w/ the star-wheel adjuster

 

Conveniently I just had my drums apart for cleaning and servicing. So for quiet and good working drums you want to lube behind the shoes at the contact points to the backing plate. I use moly grease because I have it but I used to use anti-sieze. Honestly any grease here really is fine. Just Use it sparingly or the dust will stick to it and cause noises down the road. The there should be three spots on each shoe that look like the two I have circled in maroon. Again on the side that goes to the backing plate. Not the drum facing side.

Next where I have the dark blue line around the backing plate, take a big flat head or something and go around that edge to clear out any loose rust if you have any. Thats usually the cause of your mentioned noise. Lastly take some sandpaper or a file and round all the edges of the shoes. So top/bottom and inside/outside edges. New shoes can be a little scratchy until that edge is smoothed from wear but for customer satisfaction the first time it's good to do it. Don't remove all your material, you'll probably only really need to do like 5-6 passes on each edge to be sufficient.

To adjust the drums I usually tighten the star wheel until I car turn the drum with light to medium difficulty. If they lock the wheels then i'll back off like 1-3 clicks. At the least it shouldn't be able to spin freely
** make sure the other drum is on** then i'll apply the hand brakes a couple times then repeat the adjustment. That centres everything up. I'll do that twice. Make sure you are pushing in on the drum as you check the adjustment to make sure it's square on the hub.

If you still have a noise to pinpoint then as you're spinning the drum by hand you'll hear it. If you can't tell what it is then just back off the adjuster to know if it's from the shoes or the drum to backing plate but, doing as mentioned above will probably cover all your bases.

Also I recommend cleaning your hub and the drum hub or at the least marking it's relationship to the hub. Either mark a stud and the drum or if you took it off the easy way via jackscrew then just look for the witness marks where the screw pushed off the hub. The holes are offset so looking for the witness marks will put you back the same way

 

Backing off 15 clicks is way too much. Try backing off 5 or so. Oftentimes drum brake noise like scraping and groaning is because the shoes have too much clearance and are being allowed to shift around in there

Try scuffing up the shoe and drum surface with some sandpaper

Yes they're supposed to self adjust but in reality they never do. I chase mine a click or two every time I rotate the tires

 

@joba27n Thanks for the feedback! I will follow your recommendations next week when I get a chance to pull the drums apart and let you know if that does the trick.

In the past... when I could hear the squeaking noise, I would loosen the adjuster and the squeaking noise would go-away. However, doing such would loosen the drums to the point where they weren't engaging the drum until 50% pedal application causing soft brake-pedal response and rumbling/rough braking at highway speed.

 

@b_r_o Thanks for the suggestion. Yes - that is my suspicion also... pads need to be making full and consistent contact w/ the drum as soon as brake pressure is applied. Otherwise the "squealing noise" I am hearing only once-per-rotation while braking lightly is coming from the pad just barely making contact w/ the drum until additional brake pressure is applied. Time to get out the flat-head screwdriver after work and see if I can't get those suckers tightened up a bit.

I also agree that the "self-adjusting feature" is bogus and doesn't really work in all reality.

 

It works IF the star threads are clean, lubed and not seized and installed on the correct side. Get them flipped around on the wrong side of the truck and they will not work properly.

 

True. The self adjuster isn't perfect but it keeps it close enough that every sunday you don't have to pop by the shop to get them tightened up.
Luckily the Toyota ones look very high quality and have a bit of lube in them from the factory in all the right spots

 

When I adjust my drum brakes, I adjust until I make 1 revolution by turning the wheel by hand.

 

Using the parking brake more made my rear brakes quiet.

 

I haven’t even opened up my drums yet…


Parking brake is still at 2 clicks though, just like how it was new.

 

21st century
Should have disk brakes in the rears too.
Is there a way to retrofit the drums to disks?

 

The joke is the rear brakes never wear down because they aren't doing any work

 

Ahaaaaahaaaaaahaa

Good one.



In the spring I’ll open those sons of bitches up.