Brakes

I’ve got seemingly mushy brakes in my ‘05 Tundra limited, I recently had the system flushed, stops fine but didn’t really change the mushy feel. I’ve heard there’s a power assist brake module that can fail, mine only has 160k on it, how do I test the brake module?

 

Read the mega thread before posting

 

yeah, as you can see, I’m relatively new here,…Mega thread?

 

The Mega thread : https://www.tundras.com/threads/so-you-wanna-buy-just-bought-a-1st-gen-tundra-eh.115928/

Lots of good info compiled into one thread. Many of your questions will be answered here. Good idea to read through a few times

 

I went through the same thing, here is my post after: https://www.tundras.com/threads/normal-brakes-are-possible.147241/

 

Agree that the info in the last thread is good. Review the part about pressure bleeding. That's absolutely required to get a baseline - you must use a pressure bleeder, so whoever did your brake flush, go back and ask them how they did it. If not with a pressure bleeder, then you need to redo it. Second critical thing is that you MUST setup your parking brake, and then you MUST use it all the time. I never understood why people won't use their parking brake, but if you want to have properly working brakes and good brake feel on these trucks, you have to use it. No shortcuts - use your parking brake. Period. Setting it up properly will probably take some disassembly, inspection, greasing, then adjustment based on the shop manual (outlined in the brake stickie).

 

Park on a slight incline, engage the parking brake about halfway down, put it in neutral, let off the brake pedal, does the parking brake hold the truck in place? Then park on flat ground, leave the truck in drive, engage the parking brake normally, take your foot off the brake pedal, does the parking brake still hold the truck in place easily with no shifting/chattering of the rear brakes?

If not, your rear drum brakes need to be adjusted (and possibly replaced). The idea being, when you press the brake pedal and it feels mushy or goes lower than you'd expect a normal car's to, the hydraulic fluid gets pushed to the rear brake shoes first which have to travel really far to touch the drums when not adjusted properly, THEN the hydraulic pressure gets sent to your front disc brakes which provide most of your stopping power.

When I adjusted mine, it was an extremely messy job. The rear hubs were FILLED with brake dust even though the brake shoes were still in good shape (probably replaced by previous owner without cleaning the inside of the hub). You definitely want to wear a N95 or stronger mask if you're just gonna blast it out with compressed air. Otherwise, you get it wet, spray some light degreaser on everything, brush everything with a detailing brush, and rinse with water and dry it well before putting the hub back on (capture the nasty juice in a plastic tub unless you're willing to have a permanent black spot on your driveway). I recommend using a heated blow drier to dry the hub (not a heat gun).

Then once everything is clean and you can see what you're doing, to adjust the rear drum brakes and spread the brake shoes apart, you move the star adjuster from the bottom up with a flathead screwdriver. I had to do each side about 20-40 clicks on mine. Once the shoes are kissing the hub or lightly dragging on it, back the adjuster off a click or two (top to down). Put the hub back on with two lugnuts holding it in place, give it a couple good spins with your hands, and make sure its not dragging excessively. (A slight kiss at a certain point of the rotation is okay.)

You can also do this job by using the access ports on the inside of the hub (where the brake bleeder screws are) but access is difficult. They are supposed to have a plastic dust cap. Adjustment is the reverse of my previous instructions since you are working from behind. But you wont be able to clean the hub that way or inspect the brake shoes.