If your brake's hydraulic system failed and you had to stop your 4R with the e-brake, would it stop it?

I ask because I don't think the rear brakes on this 4R of ours work worth a damn. I have replace the shoes and turned the drums with no improvement. I replace the brake fluid too (that really has nothing to do with a basic lack of friction between the shoes and drums but I thought I'd throw that in). I am using AZ Duralast shoes. Could that be the problem? Crappy shoes?

It all looks to be working properly. Everything moves exactly as it should when using the e-brake lever or the brake pedal. Just not much stopping force. I thought the rear brakes were supposed to be self assisting. That is, the friction itself causes the brake shoes to engage even harder and that why the springs are used to help make them release. It seems I'm getting no self assisting at all.

This is a major safety hazard. I don't think the 4R has enough braking power to lock up the wheels even if you slam on the brakes as hard as you can. I believe this is due to the fact that the rear brakes aren't helping. It's all on the fronts and that one of the reason the fronts warp so fast, they have to do all the work! My girlfriend (who is the primary driver) thought it was the anti-lock system that was keep the brakes from locking. I told her that no, it's simply because they suck so bad.

Yes, the parking brake is supposed to be able to stop the truck in the advent the hydraulic brakes went out.

On DOUS's 4runner, with the parking brake set, he can't move it all. (4cyl)

The Hydraulic brakes are a 2 channel system meaning that if a front hose were to bust, the rear brakes would still work and vice versa. So total failure of the brake system should not occur unless it was deliberate sabotoshed.

Try that old trick of rolling backwards and pulling the ebrake a bunch. It should ratchet down the shoes automatically.

If that doesn't suit your needs, you can always go under and manually click the ratcheting mechanism with a screwdriver from the back of the drum!

The ratcheting mechanisms are working perfectly. I cleaned and lubed them about 16 months ago and I just pulled the drums and had them turned and those mechanisms still work as the should. I appreciate the help but it's not the adjustment of the shoes that is causing my problem. I just don't get enough friction between shoe and drum. I'm really starting to think either this rear brake design is not compatible with AZ's Duralast shoes or AZ sold me the wrong shoes.

I've seen this sort of thing before when I put Hawk pads on my old Pontiac and then had poor braking power. I removed the Hawk ceramic pads, installed generic semi-metallic and brake power was restored.

Well, thanks for the few replies I got. I think the lack of response basically says it all. Not many 3rd gen owners have rear brakes that work worth a darn. I got a theory on that. I think it's a design flaw.

A lot of 3rd gen owners blame the front brakes for being too small. That may be true for those who modified (lifted and oversize wheels) their 4Rs. I don't believe that's the case for the stock rigs. The real problem is since the rear brakes aren't working most of the braking has to be done by the fronts which makes them overheat and warp or transfer pad to the rotors.

I will be testing my theory soon. I'm hoping to come up with a mod that bandaids the rear brakes into working as they should. I'll let you all know how it turns out within a couple of weeks.

The drum brakes are adequate for the 4runner. Your problem is that they need adjustment. Make sure that you have matching hardware your year as toyota has changed them though the different years. If you mix match, it will be quite possible that the brakes aren't adjusting themselves or working at all.

The front brakes are what they are. Bad toyota design. The rotor is thicker on one side then the other and naturally you will have one side getting hotter then the other side. So instead of even temps across everything and metal expanding evenly, you have temps all over the place and the metal expanding at different rates causing heavy warping to occur.

The only real complaint would be the LPV in the rear of the older 2wd's. If it is not adjusted for the lift you have, you will have reduced rear brake action.

I did a rear disc brake conversion for my Ranger which I just sold. It wasn't too hard, modified some mustang brackets to mount the calipers to the rangers rear end.

I really hate drum brake assemblies, so as soon as the shoes wear out, I'm going disc one way or another. It'd be nice to get mustang compatible brakes on there because the aftermarket is endless.

My rear e-brake works fine. My shifter broke and it won't go into park so I have to use my e-brake. I park on some decent inclines and it still holds very well. I did adjust the 10mm nut on the e-brake itself. Have you tried that?

Thanks. Some really knowledgeable points.

But I'm not sure what adjustment could be out. The ratchets work perfectly. I installed better shoes last weekend and had my girlfriend work the park lever up and down while I watched the mechanism. Worked perfectly. It's self-adjusting. How can I have it out of adjustment if it's self adjusting? You work the lever till brakes stops clicking. It's that simple.

I'll tell you what I think is wrong. The shoes won't move like they are supposed to. When braking in the forward motion the leading shoe is supposed to wedge in and it's not doing that. It shows in an incomplete wear pattern where only about half the shoe is making contact. Basically something is wrong with the back plate or the anchor wedge.

I have the same problem, identically. I've changed shoes, drums, fluid, many times, nothing.

Useless pieces of crap, these rear brakes.

Plans are to get a manual prop valve to control them. That's the only way I can think of that will make the stupid things work.

When I bought it, the original drums and shoes were still there, in tact, without wear. The previous owner went through many front rotors.

Reporting back after one last attempt to get these drum brakes working properly.

After much analysis, my best guess is that the shoes refuse to wedge in as they should. That conclusion is based on the small contact/wear pattern on shoes that had seen more than a year of usage.

I removed the drums and noted that the shoes do not seem to move freely. I think you should be able to grab them and move them up and down without too much trouble. I removed the shoes and after some thorough cleaning noted some wear on the back plate shoe contact areas. I use some wet and dry sand paper to smooth them out. I also did the anchor blocks and applied a healthy coating of brake grease to all contact points. Now I have the shoes sliding nicely.

During the road test I found I can now actually stop the 4runner with the e-brake. That's a nice thing to know. Backing down the driveway I could stop it on a dime. I cannot lock up the rear wheels while driving but maybe after they break in some. I had so much fun driving around and using the e-brake that when I got back home and I could smell the back brakes when I pulled up into the garage. Seems they are starting to work now.

Hope this helps.

I can lock my rear up offroad, so my drum brakes definitely feel adequate. On the road I've tried the e-brake and although it doesn't stop as quickly as normal braking (obviously), it would still work in a pinch.