Rear Brake Drum Replacement

I just got my taco not that long ago, and I'm slowly starting to replace everything. The truck takes a lot of distance to stop, so I'm going to pick up some "POWER STOP Z36 Severe-Duty Truck & Tow" front brake pads and rotors.

Would I have to replace the rear brake drums, shoes, and springs + hardware as well? I hear it's a real PITA to work on them and I'd rather not spend the money and take the time to replace them if there's no point.

I have about 82,000 miles on it. It's a 2WD Automatic. I've never towed a thing in my life. I used the truck to move houses a couple years ago so maybe the brakes could be worn from that. Otherwise I rarely have a load.

Probably a really bad comparison, but my '00 Mercedes E320 sedan takes about less than half the distance it takes the Tacoma to stop on a flat level road. The Benz also weighs about a thousand pounds more than the Tacoma.

 

hard to tell what may be going on with your braking, but replacing worn pads and rotors is a good start. I did when i first got my truck and I'm very happy with its braking performance. ...nevery driven an E320 though. My tacoma stops better than my 2001 Saab 9-3 Viggen, for comparison.

you probably don't have to replace your rear drums. they last for a very long time. if you haven't been hauling a lot they probably have not seen a lot of use.

start with the fronts and see where that gets you. the Tundra caliper and rotor upgrade might be up your alley if you want better than stock performance. does the pedal feel weird, or is it just poor performance?

 

Braking is super smooth, the pedal travels with resistance and feels like it should. No problem there (I hope). It's mainly performance.

What about the brake shoes themselves? Should I worry about those? From my limited car knowledge the shoes=pads, and the drums=rotors.

It's funny, I had a 2015 Mercedes-Benz C Class AMG as a rental car when I had to bring in my benz for service (goddamn stealership charging an arm and a leg to change the motor mounts) and I was so used to having to stomp on the Tacoma brakes way ahead of time and keep a lot of distance that I almost hit my hit my head on the steering wheel when I hit the brakes. Stopping power on that thing is insane. I almost got launched into another dimension.

The C-Class had some crappy 1.7l engine, but it felt crazy powerful. Acceleration was insane. Felt a 100x more powerful than my 2.7l Tacoma.

 

rear brakes, especially in a truck are going to account for very little braking force. not nothing, but if you're experiencing really anemic braking it's probably not them. I've read some information that drum brake shoes are meant to last about 35k, but i just helped my buddy replace his on his Xterra for the first time in 180,000, and they still had life left in them. I haven't looked at mine yet, but i have 194,000 on the clock, and i'm almost positive they're original.

drums themselves are designed to last about 200,000. you can always peek in there if you want to see what the shoes look like, wear wise. they're cheap...but a bit of a pain to switch out as you have to mess around with some ornery springs.

 

Pretty easy to pop the rear drums off just to see the condition of the shoes. If the shoes are glazed, they will have greatly reduced braking efficiency. You can scuff them up with some light sanding to break the glazed surface.
Regardless, the rear drums aren't doing much for you anyways. Upgrade the fronts like you're planning to, and if that doesn't do it for you, do the tundra brake upgrade (assuming you have 16" wheels).

 

I did my front brakes earlier this year and they were completely used up. I knew it was time when the rear of the truck would break loose in the rain on a downhill stop. The truck stops great now. Out of curiosity I dug into the rear brakes a couple of weeks ago and found them to be in great shape. I've only had the truck a year and after seeing how bad the fronts had been I figured an inspection was in order. Also, the front brake job was easy. I used Auto Zone Gold parts with lifetime pads as I recall.

 

I'd do the fronts, inspect/adjust the rears (even though self adjusting) and go from there. Rears aren't all that much of a PITA imo.

 

It was all I could do to stretch the return spring to its original position after removing it. I couldn't find any place to put and pivot a bar so I used vice-grips and just pulled as hard as I could. Hopefully I won't have to do that again.

 

I just put that Power Stop package on my '99 (did the rear shoes as well: 140k odometer). Now that they are nicely bedded, I am quite happy with the improved stopping. Going to flush the old fluid soon, put new flexible stainless brake lines on, so should improve even more.

On my Audi A3, I put six-pot calipers, with 2-part rotors on, and the power, the POWER of stopping!! The Tacoma will never stop like that, but I never drive the Tacoma like I drive the Audi

 

@drr


Inspection tells me my rear drum pads have 1MM left on it. Any thoughts on cost to replace? Dealer quoted $239. Truck has 207k miles. DC 4 cyl, AT. Rear brakes are OEM, never been replaced.

 

If you have any mechanical inclination, the rear shoes aren't that bad to replace yourself. Jack up the whole back end of the truck and do one side at a time, using the other side as reference to get everything in right.

That being said, if you don't feel like tackling them yourself, a couple hundred bucks at the dealer doesn't sound too bad. Hopefully that includes parts. It's maybe 1.5 to 2 hour job for them, so labor should be $150-200.

 

I always do New Drums with brake shoes as cheap as drums are .

My Rear brakes do quite a lot of braking because my Truck is loaded most times.

The old ones make great bases for stands

 

I just pulled my drums to find my original pads still had plenty life. Got almost 211k on them.

 

Yes dealer quoted $239 for shoes and labor

I imagine no drums at that price

I may tackle it myself looking at some you tube video

Gotta figure out the parts order first

 

That's honestly pretty cheap depending on how you value your time. I've done rear brakes on Toyota axles a few times and I can never do it in under 3 hours. Something always ends up fighting me along the line. Almost all of that cost is labor, I think a shoe kit is sub $20 from a parts store.

 

As I sit here In the office, your post makes more and more sense especially since I have never tackled a drum brake job

 

Remove the wheels and spray the hub center with penetrating fluid where it contacts the rear drums a few days before you plan to do the work. Install wheels & torque lug nuts.
Tapping the drums toward the axle with a hammer also can help loosen them up for removal.

 

Took me 3 hours, I just replaced the shoes and springs,

I found it quite relaxing actually, just put on some music and looked at my Haynes manual every 10-15 seconds lol

Shoes + hardware kit was $88 cad Soo....55 ish us including shipping from rock Auto plus $5 for some brake cleaner

Side note: my brakes were very noisy at low speeds, this fixed it right up

 

Good lord I made this post three years ago.

I've since upgraded to front Tundra brakes and it's made a vast improvement.

 

Nice, was the swap over pretty straight forward?