e brake help

I have a 97 tacoma 4x4. I replaced the rear left brake shoes and cleaned it up good and put it all back like it goes. Now my e brake won't work. It pulls out with little resistance and won't hold at all. And my brake light doesn't come on now. Just replaced the other side also. What did I do and what should I check?

 

Did you adjust the shoes out to the drum after you installed them?

 

BDN, no, I thought they would adjust them selves. What should I do. The e brake indicator light won't come on or anything. Its the first time I've replaced them

 

You'll need to spin the adjuster wheel and spread the shoes until they contact the drum.
You can access the adjuster through the backing plate, look for and remove the oblong rubber plug in the upper half of the backing plate.

You'll need a bent screwdriver or better yet an actual brake adjusting tool.


The procedure looks like this, exception being ours is on the top section of the backing plate.


Using the thin screwdriver, push back the adjuster lever and then rotate the wheel until the shoes make contact with the drum. I do mine until they lock the drum up, then back it off until it just begins to spin free again.

 

Now, if you threaded the brake adjusting wheel down to it's shortest length when you had it apart, I'd pull the drum back off and do it right there until the drum is just a bit snug going back on. It will take a good long while otherwise to do it through the adjuster window.
After you get the pads to where you can just get the drum back on, do the final adjustment through the adjuster window to finish it off.

 

this has nothing to do with your problem but just general FYI never just change one side only its dangerous and things have trouble adjusting correctly

 

OK, I'll try adjusting them out.
Keakar, I planned to do them at the same time but just didn't work out that day.

 

When working correctly, the drum brakes adjust automatically whenever you pull the parking brake. There's no need to adjust the star wheel directly with the drum off or through the backing plate. If you turned the adjuster all the way in when you put the new shoes on, then after putting the drum on you repeatedly pull the parking brake to adjust them. Each pull should adjust the star wheel one or two teeth until it is at the proper point. If it's quiet you should be able to hear this mechanism working (clicking) as it adjusts with each pull.

Now, if the brake light isn't lit with the key ON and the parking brake on, then you may have a problem with the mechanism under the dash. That's where the switch is.

 

Adjusting using this method will take the better part of a day to adjust one side only. You do realize that each pull on the brake handle adjusts the adjuster a total of ONE click? If he has them full threaded in, he's looking at needing to extend the adjuster about an inch just to get in the ballpark.

Let's do some math. There are about 38 teeth, give or take on that star wheel. He needs to adjust it 38 times for one revolution, it takes about 30 plus full turns on that wheel to move it an inch. He'll need to yank the cable 1140 times to get it close. Now I'm not exact on that tooth count, but you get the idea.

 

The way I said was the way the Toyota Repair Manual says to do it.

I think your estimate is off, but even 1140 pulls doing one every two seconds would only take 38 minutes not "the better part of a day."

The star wheel probably has 30 teeth at most and the thread is likely a 1.25mm pitch, so that's only 20 full revolutions to adjust one inch. It would never have to go one inch. More likely half an inch at most, so 10 revolutions. That would only be 300 clicks of the teeth. If you pull the parking brake lever once per second that's only five minutes.

So, maybe you save a few minutes by adjusting it manually a few full turns, but I would say do the final adjustment with the parking brake lever. Adjusting the wheel through the backing plate access hole would take longer. That hole is for backing the adjuster off if the drum is worn with a ridge and you can't pull it off past the shoes.

If everything is working correctly and adjusted correctly, then with the parking brake off, the shoes should have a "diameter" of 0.60mm less than the inner diameter of the drum.

 

Imo, You really don't want to use the Emergency brake as a brake adjusting tool, no matter what book is talking to you, especially with a high mileage or any mileage truck.

But yes and absolutely, use it as a job finishing final adjustment type of thing for a few clicks of the star wheel..

 

I'll concede my math being poor, I did not actually count.
I just did my rears a couple weeks ago and myself started out with the adjuster full retracted and yes, I did work the e-brake cable to start the adjustment but saw it as a long and boring process so I pulled the drum back off and spun it until I could get the drum on with a bit of resistance. Took less than 5 minutes that way and didn't have to mess around with small tools in a smaller opening. That's 30 minutes of time I got to save for TW.

Hopefully the OP responds back, kind of wondering how he made out..

 

Well they started working and holding tight. I guess they adjusted their selves. But the light still doesn't come in. It worked the day I took the old shoes off. It would come on when the handle was barely pulled out.

But the e brake us holding tight now anyway

Thanks everyone for replying

 

sounds like you need to go under the truck and grease the e-brake pivot arm under the truck that pulls the cables. they get rusty and sticky so the brake cable spring cant fully release the cable tension

 

The bulb could be burned out by coincidence. Can you get it to light up, say by removing the lid from the fluid reservoir, or whatever would simulate low fluid?