Rear brake adjustments

[mendozer]

I put in new brakes and ended up needing a new bellcrank because a bolt snapped in it. So I put new adjustment bolts, adjusted the gap to .025 (FSM says .016-.031 so I picked something in between.

The issue is my parking brake, it allows me pull it up like 10-12 clicks and I tried the pumping to adjust them and a few hard reverse stops to set the shoes. Still not in that 7-9 range. The lever itself even has a bit of play before any tension. I tried tightening the nut on the side of the lever but nothing changed. Any ideas?

 

[Malcolm99]

You need to pull the ebrake to adjust them, I forget if going in reverse or forward matters in these, don't think so and you can do it parked, just keep pulling the ebrake and it should adjust, you can pull the plug on the back to adjust them as well. Best method I have found is to set them so it's difficult to get the drum to slip on using the drum to straighten out the shoes as you go, then just a few ebrake pulls and life is good, there is also a 10mm nut and stud you can tighten under the ebrake handle boot, but that's last resort for stretched cables/fine tuning for preference. There is a FSM manual as a sticky on Yotatech it will give you more details than you want.

 

[mendozer]

I did all that, but maybe didn't pull the handle enough. To make my life easier I did set the brake adjusting screw down to fairly low so it may take many pumps.

 

[Malcolm99]

Ya no don't do that, it would take many many pulls to correct for that, you only get one click on the adjuster gear each pull, set it so the drums are a beast to convince in place. Now that your together pop the 4 plugs and adjust it a bit at a time mirroring what you do to the other side, the other plug is so you can see the shoe to drum clearance, it's a pain to adjust them through this hole is why I suggested my method. Works every time, couple pulls with the ebrake and it's good and your brake padal is solid afterwards.

 

[brillo_76]

I gave up and just adjust mone by hand every 5 to 10k. That way I know they are adjusted properly..

Edit:

I adjust via the brake tools until they start hitting the drums. I gave up on the e brakes drum adjustments in the rust belt.

My e brakes are functional. I just dont use them on the automatic 4 runners.

Sent from my SM-J337V using Tapatalk

 

[mendozer]

Ya no don't do that, it would take many many pulls to correct for that, you only get one click on the adjuster gear each pull, set it so the drums are a beast to convince in place. Now that your together pop the 4 plugs and adjust it a bit at a time mirroring what you do to the other side, the other plug is so you can see the shoe to drum clearance, it's a pain to adjust them through this hole is why I suggested my method. Works every time, couple pulls with the ebrake and it's good and your brake padal is solid afterwards.

you lost me on the plugs...

 

[Malcolm99]

That's why it's important to have a fully functional ebrake on these, if you use it often it self adjusts the rear brakes every pull, that's why I always laugh when people start replacing a brake master cylinder because of soft pedal feel and say they never use there ebrake, well if the rear brake cylinders are over extending because of poor adjustment that's what you'll get, soft pedal and poor braking response.

*Doesn't help having aluminum and steel combined as the bell crank, Aluminum and steel don't get along well at all!

 

[Malcolm99]

^^ the backing plate for the drums have an oval and round rubber plug, oval is for adjusting round is for measuring clearance. Sorry for all the edits this forum is killer for spellcheck, I may have added more detail to my original post

 

[96RedRunner]

Brake adjusting spoon makes using oval adjusting port easy.
I reassemble adjust shoes till drum drags sliding on, spin drum should hear lite scrubbing, both sides. Cable connecting R to L side checked for slack lubed, adjust as needed.
this cables purpose keep both sides equal. Do click test fail adjust each side with spoon keep each wheel scrub same till click passes.
The reverse adjust not on Yota's.
Use your E-brake more often, Hold lever button in pump handle to adjust to spec when you think about/ at oil change. This been working for a while.

 

[mendozer]

got em all nice and tight now. I was also struggling to bleed one drum for whatever reason. Switching to my old compressor adapter seemed to do the trick. Thanks for the insight!

I just spun the adjuster screw by hand since it was fast.

 

[fourfive]

I put in new brakes and ended up needing a new bellcrank because a bolt snapped in it. So I put new adjustment bolts, adjusted the gap to .025 (FSM says .016-.031 so I picked something in between.

The issue is my parking brake, it allows me pull it up like 10-12 clicks and I tried the pumping to adjust them and a few hard reverse stops to set the shoes. Still not in that 7-9 range. The lever itself even has a bit of play before any tension. I tried tightening the nut on the side of the lever but nothing changed. Any ideas?

Is your 4runner an 01-02? If it is, I don't think it's possible to adjust the rear brakes using the parking brake lever. I forget the details why but there was another thread that talked about it.

 

[mendozer]

yeah it's an 02. Do you mean the clicking adjustments? Once I got things tight my clicks went from 12 to 9 so I didn't bother doing anything else. I know the brake cylinder is hydraulic vs vacuum but I don't see why that should affect the parking brake adjustments, that's just cable driven.

 

[Malcolm99]

Brake adjustment is the same on all 3rd gens, the only difference is the traction control, so he has separate brake lines where previous models T the brake lines in the rear as we have no traction control.

 

[mendozer]

is that why the bleeding process is different? earlier 3rd gens say RR,RL,FR,FL order like "the usual way" but our FSM says FR,FL, RR, RL. I tried it both ways and I couldn't tell much of a difference, fluid came out either way.

 

[Malcolm99]

Honestly I don't think it makes a difference as long as you don't let the resorvior run dry while bleeding. The front and rears have a divider in the resorvior so there would be no change/difference IMO(so you have front or rear brakes if you blow a line) they usually suggest you bleed the longest brake line 1st and shortest brake line last thus the suggested bleed order for best practices, if you got air in the abs system it might take a few more rounds of bleeding and abs actuation, I think there is even a way to actuate the abs while doing the bleed, I never had an issue with that and just rebleed if its not quite right after using the abs system a few times. Speed bleeders made this job much easier but they need to be oiled or they seize up the ball and spring speed bleeder, brake fluid is a terrible lubricant so oil should be added and a rubber cap should go on.

 

[fourfive]

yeah it's an 02. Do you mean the clicking adjustments? Once I got things tight my clicks went from 12 to 9 so I didn't bother doing anything else. I know the brake cylinder is hydraulic vs vacuum but I don't see why that should affect the parking brake adjustments, that's just cable driven.

I was talking about trying to adjust the rear brakes by repeatedly pulling up on the parking brake lever. Although it can be done on 96-00, it doesn't seem like that method works for 01-02 due to slight differences in the rear drum set up.

Thread talking about the rear brake differences:
Differences in Drum Brakes?


I wasn't aware of this difference until I saw that thread. I always wondered why repeatedly pulling up on my parking brake lever never seemed to adjust my rear brakes which is why I've always made adjustments at the star wheel by removing the drum (or by removing the plug on the backing plate to access the star wheel adjuster). After making adjustments on the star wheel to position the rear shoes to where I can just barely slide the drum back on without too much resistance, I'll double check that I'm in the appropriate range by pulling up on the parking brake to see if I'm in the FSM's recommended 7-9 click range.

 

[96RedRunner]

I was talking about trying to adjust the rear brakes by repeatedly pulling up on the parking brake lever. Although it can be done on 96-00, it doesn't seem like that method works for 01-02 due to slight differences in the rear drum set up....

Have put 21k mi on my 01 new shoes n pads., 18k mi on 01 setup, 3.5k mi with pre 01 locker axle setup since swap.
Lever click adjust I do everytime I get in Runner it a habit, 01 setup did work for 18k mi, I checked at oil change so 4-5 times because of hearing what you say, maybe not enough miles to judge. Not worried about locker axle.