Rear Drum Brakes - Condition?

I decided to check out my rear brake drums and shoes today, I am not having any issues, sometimes a little squeak, but they have 120,000 miles on them. So I pulled the drum off, and cleaned them with some brake cleaner, and put them back together. I broke one of the hold down spring cups on the passenger side, and need to get a new one, but otherwise no issues.

Never done rear brakes, and wondering if I should replace the shoes and drums now or soon, or if they look good enough to wait a long time. I plan to keep checking them every 10k miles.

Here are some pictures of the condition of the shoes.

























YES - I know I am missing a spring here, I broke it today, and ordered the rebuild kit, and will replace it tomorrow. The truck is on jack stands until I get the new parts in.

 

A tell tell sign is when ur ebrake will starts to stick. If it was me...ur wheels are off and u for over 100k.. Id replace

 

Why not change them and be good for another 100,000 miles? My rears had about half of that left at less then 65000 miles.

 

Just replace the drums right now since you already everything apart and be good for another 100k+ miles

 

replace it... it shows thin wear in center.. like no mods said...

 

+1
No need to check them every 10k, that's a waste of time. Just do it now and you're done for another 7 years.

Those leading shoes are getting a bit thin.

 

Ok, sounds good, I have no issues changing them. Having it apart doesnt make much of a difference, I dont have the parts now, and this is my DD, so it is all going back together once I get the clip for the spring that I broke, and then I can order parts and do the swap. Likely make this a winter project, taking the wheels off and all was easy.

Recommendations on pads and drums? Or just get whatever is cheap from Advance or Rock Auto?

I dont tow, but I like extra braking power, and have steel lines al around.

$225 + Shipping and Tax to do Toyota Parts

$165 to do Advance Auto/Rock Auto Parts, which might just be identical to Toyotas, I bet Toyota doesnt make their drums and shoes, and I bet there is nothing special about the Toyota Parts.

 

Consider trying to turn the drums instead of replacing them. It's a big chunk of steel to throw away if they only need machined. Maybe they're bad, but probably not if it's still the first set of shoes.

 

Another recomendation would be to grease the moving parts and remove the caliper, inspect and clean or replace any necessary parts. It looks like the shoes are not extending equally. Your left shoe is thinner than your right shoe. That tells me that the right piston inside the caliper is draggin and or that there is more friction on the moving metal parts on the right side. Don't forget to re-adjust manual brake after you replace the shoes, that's about it.

 

Stick with OEM shoes and pads. They are more expensive than aftermarket, and will last a LOT longer.
The drums don't need to be replaced unless they are warped, and that is extremely rare. Just have them turned to clean them up and remove the glaze... same as you would do with rotors.

 

That is normal wear for shoes. The leading shoe always gets more wear because of the direction of rotation of the drum.
Compare his pictures of the right and left... the thin shoe is toward the front of the truck on both of them. Both right and left sides are wearing almost exactly the same as mirror images. That is good. There is nothing wrong with his wheel cylinders.

While it's not a bad idea to rebuild the cylinder (not caliper) while it is apart, it really is not needed unless it is leaking, and rebuilding it means bleeding the system.

My '94 went over 224k without ever having to rebuild the cylinders.

 

Ok, just buying shoes from Toyota, seems very reasonable and having the drums turned should be easy, new drums are $85 - 100 each from Toyota, which is a little much.

 

Personally I would change the pads. I wouldnt change the drums unless they're deeply grooved. Post a pic of the inside of the drums.

 

Will do that tomorrow, they look very good though, no groves.

 

How's the lip on the edge? Did you have to back off the shoes to remove the drums or did they just slip right off?

 

Good advice on changing the shoes. Don't forget to get the hardware kits for both drums and put new springs in! Also, unless you are getting pulsing in the pedal or you have grooves in the drums, the drums are fine.

Easy way to tell those shoes were spent was that the ends of the shoes were starting to crumble off, look at those last few pictures on the OP and you can see it on the top of the shoes. That's a sure sign that the material is losing its bond with the base of the shoe and is just tearing off instead of wearing down from friction.

Good luck with the swap! Be sure to bleed those brakes too if they are still using original fluid.

 

Is good to know, thanks for the info. I was comparing previous experience with other vehicles where the wearing was very uneven and rebuilding the cylinders fix that uneven wear.

 

Only if you like to waste money. My 97 had the original rear brakes when I sold it a 285K. had to free up the parking brake pivots 3 times over the years but never replaced the brakes.

 

Drum Pictures







The one side came off one, but the other took some pulling, might be a lip on there.

 

Those are in great shape.
Slap some new shoes and parts kit on there.
Give the drums a turn if you like, but considering you will probably never need to pull those drums again, it's not that big of a deal.

It's nothing like 1970 when we still had cars with 4-wheel drum brakes and they'd wear a nasty lip in 30k.

The only good thing about them was that some cars forced you to repack the bearings regularly... my '67 Chevelle had a pressed-in hub. Removing the drum required pulling the bearings.
Repacked those suckers in a hotel parking lot in Flagtaff after burning up the brakes coming down out of Jerome!