You're E-Brake should click no more than 5 or MAYBE 6 times for a FULL GRAB or your rears are out of adjustment and forcing your front rotors to do all the work to stop the truck. When the rears are out of adjustment, the front disc breaks have to work harder, causing them to get hotter and potentially warp. In severe situations, the pedal may feel mushy and the vehicle may "nose-dive" during a hard break. When the rears are properly adjusted, the vehicle will only slightly nose-dive and the vehicle wil be much more "controlled" when coming to a quick stop.

There's two ways to adjust your rear drum brakes on a Toyota (pretty much any vehicle for that matter).

The first way requires you to get under the vehicle and gain access to the adjustment "port" on the backside of the drum and insert a screwdriver and manually "ratchet" the adjustment wheel to reduce the gap between the shoes and the drum.

However, there's a much easier and MUCH quicker method that you can do from the driver seat. You adjust the rears by putting the truck in REVERSE, then going about 3MPH-5MPH in REVERSE, you pull up and release the E-Brake rapidly while keeping the button depressed, basically ratcheting the rear drums - with your FEET OFF THE PEDALS. You will FEEL the rear brakes get tighter and tighter as the tolerance for the gap between the shoes and the drum is reduced with each pull. You'll have to ratchet the handle 20-50 times depending on how badly they're out of adjustment. I just push in the button and keep it there, then "pump" the handle up and down quickly (from fully pulled to a fully released position) while keeping my foot OFF the brake while rolling in reverse. I usually do it on a hill in my neighborhood so I don't have to touch the gas either. 3-5MPH is plenty fast enough.

You should do this about once per month or about every 1000 miles to keep them adjusted.

When mine are "fresh" (recent adjustment), I can't pull the handle hard enough to get 7 clicks. Period.

 

didn't work at all for me.....i really need to inspect my rear pads, i have a feeling that it is time for some new ones.

 

Caught your suggestion on the other thread and tried it out before. My brakes werent as bad as the others and I only ratcheted a few times but I can definitely feel a tighter pedal. Will do it a few more times later in the week and try it out on moms camry too as her brakes are way mushy. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

Interesting. I will have to try that if these go out of adjustment. Right now I am at 3 clicks for full holding power. I hope that is ok...

 

I assume it'll work on a Taco as well?

 

how am i suppsoed to do this with the twist and pull handle just below my steering column to the right? i dont have an ebrake lever

 

I think ill give it a shot. I caught myself driving with the e brake on couple times. = ( Hope this improves braking.

 

I'm going to try it in the morning. How the hell did you come up with this?

 

My dad told me about it years ago. He was a little bit of a "wrench-head" back in the 50's and 60's. All the cars had drum brakes back then. The design on the mechanism hasn't changed...

 

My T100 has a twist and pull. I'm thinking if you hold the twist on, then you can just pump the brake like normal handbrake. I'll let you know if I wreck. :pat:

 

I jsut tested my e-brake and I can make it click 10 times. Can I still do this?

 

Sure, it might take a while, but you can do it this way.

 

Ah geez....
I just got 15 clicks out of my e-brake handle :pat:
Is there maybe supposed to be more clicks for the auto-tranny e-brakes?
If not, then this might explain why I've had my front rotors resurfaced twice in 12,000 miles

 

lol...actually that's a common known thing, not to dogg on you or anything like that .

Unfortunately that won't work though if your brakes are seriously out of adjustment, otherwise you'll be going in reverse and forward alot, the ratchet mechanism doesn't move a whole lot when you do this. In this instance, you 'll need to physically remove the drum and turn the "star" wheel until the shoe pads sort of drag (not a whole lot) on the drum surface.

 

you don't have to take the drums off, or even the wheel, all you have to do is take the little rubber plug off of the backing plate and stick a screw driver through the hole, just make sure you go in the right direction.

 

Just a note... this only works on a certain type of brakes. I think it only applies to the leading and trailing brakes. If you have duo-servo brakes you can adjust them by putting it into reverse then applying the brakes firmly.

 

This is a suggestion that's been around for a while, but I'm yet to see any hard evidence that it actually does anything. I've tried it several times with zero noticable difference. However, this is the first time I've ever heard anyone suggest pumping the ebrake handle. So we'll see if it works, but I'm still skeptical.

Any details about using a screw driver in the adjustment port?

 

I haven't tried the E-brake method, so I can't say with certainty that it will or won't work, but 'feel' that is might cause more problems than it cures.

IMHO, the best way to adjust drum brakes is to use the adjusting port in the backing plate to turn the star wheel. The theory of self adjusting brakes, from what I have seen, only works marginally at best. Most people don't back up often enough, and hard enough to make the self adjusting mechanism work properly. A screw driver can work, but in many cases, it is dificult, because it is too straight to get a good range of movement. The proper tool is a brake spoon, which is just a bent pry bar that is designed to do the job. They are not very expensive, and are available in most auto part stores.

 

it didnt work on mine. Am i supposed to pull it kinda hard when i pump it>?

 

push in the button and hold it in, then vigorously pump the e-brake handle while moving in reverse. if they are badly out of adjustment, then you may have to do it for a while to get them back into spec.