What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

I pulled my drums off earlier this year and was surprised to find everything in great shape. 165k miles. I have no idea if they are the original parts or if the 1st owner replaced everything. The last thing I need to do is fix the slack in the parking brake so I'll attempt that this weekend. Thanks for the help.

 

I guess if the shoes are not adjusted right they would wear very slow if at all.

Edit. Would also make your brake pedal feel really soft

 

Pedal is very soft. I hate it. If I'm understanding this correctly, by eliminating the slack in the parking brake it will allow the shoes to self adjust as designed? Thus improving pedal feel. I had over tightened the shoes earlier this year and had to pull the drums and correct it. So while I think the rear shoes are not far off, hopefully this will help.

 

Have that on my schedule also and along with the many other helpful posts here, I have the below post saved as my go to when the time comes. The brakeman @Aerindel knows his breaks.

Mushy brake pedal but brakes work fine...

 

Yes you are correct. That is how the brakes were designed to work. To be honest it isn't the best design and many people have problems trying to get the shoes to see adjust with the ebrake pedal.

I think having it all adjusted correctly helps. Also helps living in a state that doesn't have rust from road salt messing all those components up.

The shoes need to be adjusted very close to the drums. Even touching slightly is ok.

This limits the travel of the brake pedal because the fluid doesn't have to move as far. (Soft feeling pedal).

 

Good point

 

Make sure you tighten up the turnbuckle under drivers seat chassis area first. Once this is taut, then do the gap at the wheels per the spec chart I posted.

Now, go step on your PB and you’ll hear the self adjusting clicks at the rear drums as they adjust.

 

So there's a lot of rear brake/parking brake info scattered throughout the section here. Anyone wanna collect/condense and make a sticky thread? I don't have near enough knowledge on the matter.

I know I could use it seeing as how my PB doesn't work at all.

 

Today I got out the bolt cutters and dropped my spare...needless to say the winch was rusted solid. I saw some nasty pics of rusted spare tire carriers on this site recently, and so I wanted to have a look underneath sooner rather than later. It's not too bad...I can work with this. Now to find a new winch.

 

Those ain’t fun to replace. Gotta life up the bed a bit and hope the bolts
Come out

 

That frame doesn't look great sir. You need to get something on that. It's not critical yet, but could really use some help.

 

I gave thought of that the other day along with quite a few other projects that folks have posted about. What I have determined is they created a monster with this thread and didn't realize it. Searching back in this thread is worse than pulling all four wisdom teeth at the same moment in time.

For example....
pg 1 Sep 2015 - Apr 2016
pg 2 Apr 2016 - May 2017
pg 3 - pg 7 is Mar 2017 - Dec 2017
pg 8 ---> pg 102 is Dec 2017 - Dec 2018
pg 102 ---> pg 435 is Jan 2019 - Dec 2019....folks been talking a lot in 2019

seems like they should consider a yearly.... What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra in 2020

 

Yeah, not too bad. Depending on climate of course, if it 15 years to get that bad you are still ten years away from holes.....On the other hand, if that happened in the last couple years.....

This is true but not the entire story.

You need to take out the slack.

The bell crank levers on the back of the brakes must not be stuck, same for the intermediate lever on the axle where the cable splits in two.

And the adjuster itself inside the brake drum also has to be able to turn.

The bolts on the bell crank are just there to make sure the bell crank cannot loosen enough for the internal brake drum cables to fall off, as all that keeps them in hooked in place is tension. Having a gap just means that all the slack is out of the system. You want it to be small so that if for some reason you ever disconnect your brake cable the bell cranks don't move completely slack and the short cable inside the drums can't possibly fall off.

Which is all annoying compared to how simple the front brakes are.

We do need a sticky on this as it seems once a week someone has this same problem. I may attempt the task just to save time in the future when people ask this question.

But yes, if your parking brake is not working, the self adjusters are also not working. Unless you are manually adjusting your brakes periodically this will lead to poor overall braking and a soft pedal feel.

 

Wheel Bearing money will be refunded plus new brake shoes due to the oil soaking. Got a little heated about the brake shoes, but thems the ‘breaks’. Felt badly due to my long standing relationship with the mechanic who is at a loss on what to do for a solid proper repair. I’m guessing he is out of some monies, as well as the owner of shop.

Next stop will be the $tealership.

 

So I looked into this a bit when I replaced my axle seal, but not the bearings, and found a post somewhere on a Tacoma forum that seemed to show the same retaining ring as we have. This poster claimed the solution was to put the ring on backwards, with the beveled edge towards the wheel, he made a pretty compelling argument that this gave the seal a larger area to work with as the stock way the seal lip is right at the very edge of the bevel and something like a different brand of seal could make it leak even at the correct spec.

I don't remember where this post was but the guy seemed to make a good argument.

EDIT: here is that post

 

Confirmed these are moving

Confired the last time I opened the drums.

So I just took out slack via the turnbuckle under the driver side door. The parking brake feels a LOT better now when I press it.

That being said, if the parking brake is NOT pressed I still have a fair amount of movement in the cable when I grab it. Is this normal? It's not sagging as shown in this thread.

 

Thats ‘The Dr. Coffee’ method, which Timmeh Toy uses in his videos. Timmeh actually shows the bevel. Why its beveled? No idea.

Makes sense to have the bevel non-existent with just the straight portion of retainer ring mated on the seal.

Anyways, I’m going to let the $stealer do this one.

BTW, I think this ring area is where my mechanic messed up. I’m sure stealer will want to re-do the entire assy again starting from scratch. Sounds like the smart way to approach this on their end. I want it fixed right this time and for good!

 

Which cable is still slack? The turnbuckle or the one pictured near axle?

 

Sorry, the one in the rear.

 

Yeah I don’t think I made a post for it but last September I did my t-belt, water pump, all t-belt rollers, t-belt belt tensioner, drive belt, plugs, air filter, central support bearings, oil, coolant, tranny fluid, lubed everything, and last but not least replaced my broken electric door lock all in the span of a week. I was also able to stop a belt squeal by cleaning all the accessory rollers.

 

That top pic of your truck? Looks good. If it was too tight, then your Rear Drum would engage as if the PB was pressed.

Try pressing the PB pedal a few times to work put the mojo. Then go under and start over again with your process at the turn buckle checking for slack and then go back to the wheels and set the crank levers per spec.

 

I'm not sure how to give a qualitative answer to this without a fishing scale or something. It should feel 'firm' but yes, you should still be able to move the cable by hand.

With the brake on the parking brake cable under the truck should feel 'hard', like a 1/4 steel rod that you may be able to flex a bit from side to side but that basically won't move when you try and pull on it.

The PB should be able to keep the truck from moving in idle, and you should feel noticeable moderate braking force when you apply it while coasting.

It's only too tight if you find your rear drums getting hot while driving.

 

I think I'm good then. When applied the cable is nice and tight. The parking brake pedal feels 5 times better. I'll drive it tomorrow and see if I succeeded in firming up the brake pedal.

 

Cycle your parking brake a few times. When I got mine fixed I got a good half dozen more 'clicks' out of the brake adjuster by using the parking brake than when I 'thought' I had it adjusted by hand and after that the pedal felt better.

When I got my truck there as so much slake in the parking brake cable that the previous owner had run it over the the brake proportioning valve rod mount thinking that was where it was supposed to go since there was so much slake

 

Tomorrow, when backing up in reverse, give your regular hydraulic brake pedal a few pumps to jolt the brakes into position. This reverse at slow speed jolting braking resets the servo action and re-positions the shoes.

Go back under tomorrow and re-check tensions after the ‘reverse pump reset’. Could be you’ll need some more slight adjustments.

 

I got a Dorman one for around a hundred bucks. Go to rock auto to find the part # and google search from there. I got mine on Amazon.

Edit: it’s gotten cheaper.

$82 Dorman 924-529 Spare Tire Hoist Compatible with Select Toyota Models

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00Z7NPWSU?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

 

Thanks...I'm on it. I've been treating and restoring the frame from one end to the other, prioritizing the more serious spots first. Where there is flaking and surface rust I've been using mechanical abrasion, and the a rust converter product (Permatex, although there are others).

 

I plan to cut them off, and then run new stainless bolts down from the top.

 

Thanks! And I found this one too...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Spare-Tire...a=0&pg=2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

 

I’ve always wondered if the newer chain style ones will work on the older trucks.. no worrying about those rotting like the cables