Went to dealership...

don't the back side of drum brakes have inspection holes for seeing how thick the shoe material is ?

 

You are correct. I'm thinking old school, I'm an old fart. Myself I would have removed a brake drum to measure the lining. I've removed lots of brake drums and usually they don't require much effort , of course there are exceptions, plus living in the San Francisco Bay Area, we don't have snow or salt on the roads. I wasn't thinking about other areas in the country when I made my post. For me if a drum didn't want to come off usually all it took was a couple of wacks with the palm of my hand at an angle to slightly change the alignment of the brake shoes, then the drum usually could be removed. Being old school vehicles didn't have inspection holes, only one hole for brake adjustment. Giving my age away, I worked on lots of brakes prior to self adjusters or self adjusting brakes. Personally I would rather have a complete view rather than through a little peep hole as brake lining doesn't always wear perfectly evenly.

It is quite possible as suggested they did inspect the rear brakes using the inspection holes. When I made my post use of inspection holes crossed my mind, but in this area of country on a fairly new vehicle with the wheels already removed, popping off a rear drum is usually so quick and easy I didn't think anyone would use the inspection holes. After giving this some thought a person trained as a tech doing oil changes, their training possibly would include the use of the inspection holes, leaving brake drum removal for trained mechanics. The last sentence is purely speculation on my part.

Sorry for any confusion caused by my post and hopefully this post doesn't add to it. Just my personal experience and opinions.

 

everybody uses inspections holes afaik

and the drums do not pop off easily you insert two bolts
and prise the drum off. it's easy enough with the bolts, hard as F**K without them

 

You are correct, I apologize. I have not removed a Toyota brake drum and made a false assumption.

I no longer work on my vehicles, the last drum I removed was on a 8-10 year old dodge and it was basically the same old brake technology used for decades.

Researching the Tacoma I discovered brake drum technology has had changes and improvements, the biggest surprise to me is the self adjuster being relocated right under the wheel cylinder and yes bolts are used to remove the drums.

 

M8 - 1.25 X 30mm or so.

 

Wow that's sure giving them credit for caring what the customer thinks. It maybe, but I would sure be surprised.

 

I believe your skid plate bolts will do that perfectly...

Did on my '07.