Nut!

Attached Images

 

Do you know how important this paper gasket is? It could be the difference between gear oil soaked brake shoes and dry ones in case of a seal failure!

The two black springs are hooked in the triangular holes closer to the pads and not to the round holes beside them.

The cable does go under the hook.

I wedged a 4mm thick nut to make the pass cable tighter and that seems to work and the passenger side adjusts but I'm worried that with that nut in place it will make emergency braking un-even since I technically shortened the pass side cable unless it is stretched.

Attached Images

         

i really suspect its something with the passenger side cable, and I hope I'm wrong, since the drv side adjusts just fine. Unfortunately you can't just replace the pass side since they come as one and its $100 for OEM. Not sure how the aftermarket ones are.
Also when you pull on the e brake handle the drv side locks up the wheel a couple/few clicks earlier than the pass side, less with the NUT in place.

In case its a drum issue, should I try switching the drums between sides?

Brake shoes, springs, e-cable routing all look good to me.
I’m not familiar with the silver nut at the end of your e-brake cable by the bell crank.
I’ve redone my bellcranks and I don’t have that nut on mine.

Attached Images

   

My bad, I wasn't clear that I fabricated that slotted nut and inserted it in there to tighten the slack on the pass side cable

Strange to have so much slack on the passenger side. Since you’ve confirmed no issue with binding of the bellcrank I would think the issue is with adjustment of the brake shoes on that side.

Even if you think its strange that there's so much slack on the pass cable, you still think its a problem with the adjustment of the brake on the pass side?

when I pull on the the short cable while disconnected from the bellcrank hook, it takes about the same force on both sides to get the spin wheel to click/adjust

Seems like only a few possible scenarios since all pieces look to be in their correct positions. If bellcrank was previously frozen possible cable could have been stretched at some point in time but haven’t heard of that being a common result and we know lots of people have experienced frozen bellcranks.
All your components are completely rust free so above seems unlikely.
Assuming you traced e-cable back and confirmed not issues i’d play around with adjusting shoes before buying new e-cable as i’m Sure that’s no fun to install and a bit costly.
Sorry can’t help more, interested to find the problem.

Thanks for all your help on this, owe you a beer!
Since I've re-inspected the brake components, next step I guess is to disconnect the cables from the bell cranks, re-check the gap and pivot. After that, I don't know as I've also fiddled with the cable adjustment at the e-brake handle already. Maybe I'll drive it around a bit and check again next week since I have to re-check my axle seals via the ABS port anyway.

I do have a infra temp gun which I always use to compare brake temps on each side after I do a brake job to make sure there one side is not heating up much more than one side.

@Sarki
So I disconnected the cables from the bellcranks and re-checked the gaps, as expected they were fine.

Next I re-checked pivot, I noticed that it moved a lot more in one direction vs. the other. The main brake cable was resticting the movement! Basically since I had the rig supported on the chassis and the rear diff was hanging, the main brake cable was almost fully extended. Normally I would have the jack in the middle and the stands on each side but since I did my seals and fluids I had to support the vehicle on the chassis.

I jacked up the diff and reconnected the cables, BINGO!!! I still noticed that the drv side would adjust at the first click as you pull on the e-brake handle then the pass later on the 5-7th click. i think this is it. I will finish up my tranny pan drop and fluid exchange and will take the rig for a test drive.

I'm actually looking forward to drive the rig as I did the Tundra/4R 5100s with 99 talls last Summer and just did the TBU, synthetic fluids frt/rr. diff + t-case, and lastly new rear brakes! Just got REVO3s on 17" wheels earlier this year too!

Will keep ya all posted!

Yup, sounds like you figured it out.
Your truck should ride really nice and have a nice stance with that set up.
Whenever working on the back end I always lift the entire rear underneath the rear diff and place my jack stands on both sides underneath the axle.
Finished replacing rear seals & bearings this past weekend so had the rear lifted for that job.
Replaced the rear backing plates at that time as well so had to readjust settings on bellcranks once again.

Sorry, that's what I meant, normally both jack and stands under the diff.
Did you flip your retainer? My machine-ing around where the polished started was so uneven, the machine shop didn't know where to measure the 5mm. I ended up with 622mm from the spline end (they normally measure from the there 24.5" which is about 622.3mm)with about 3.5-3.9mm showing with the seal smack on the middle on one side and the other side they initially only pressed to 621mm and it rubbed against the axle housing protrusions that protected the seal. It did ride on the center of the retainer though. So its that close. I had to have them press it a little bit more and its not riding smack in the middle but good enough.

I flipped the inner retainer when i replaced the seals, etc.
Below are a couple pictures with measurements showing before & after as well as results of “sharpie” test to confirm proper placement of flipped inner retainer.

Attached Images