Passenger drum scraping noise after Hanna

My passenger drum is making quite a racket today. Lots of scraping noises coming from the rear passenger wheel.

Last night I drove home right as the Hanna was passing through Raleigh at about 2am... needless to say it was raining.... a lot. Closer to home there were lots of shallow puddles that caused a lot of hydroplaning (fun!) and big splashes (also fun!). I parked outside my garage. This morning when I went to run an errand I noticed the scraping sound coming from the wheel. It sounds like there's sand or gravel in there. I didn't notice any noises at all last night.

I figured it was definitely the drum when I noticed it was a lot worse/louder in reverse when the brakes self-adjust themselves. I figure I will take the wheel off and take the drum off and see what's going on. I've got about 6k miles since April. Anyone else ever have this problem?

 

I have on other vehicles including my '91 4x4 Toy. All of the rain probably washed brake dust and some other debris on to the brake shoes; it has always cleared up after some normal driving.
Doubt there is anything to be worried about.

 

Fe + O2→Fe2O3

 

Does that make it radioactive?

 

I drove a total of 104.5 miles today and the noise stopped after about 75 worth of errands and across town trips. Makes sense, jut seems like it shouldn't have taken that long. The rust buildup on disc brakes comes off after a few uses... so 75 miles for drums? That musta been a lot of rust. Either way, thanks for the input.

 

Disc > Drum.
Enough said.

 

If you drove through muddy water up to the drums, there could have easily been sand and debris in the rear brakes.

 

no..... it's a covalent bond, they really need each other

 

No kidding. If rear discs would have been an option I would have paid for them...

On another note, I hauled a relatively light dresser to a friend's place tonight and noticed that whenever there was even a slight bump I heard the scraping sound again. I need to ride in the bed while someone else drives so I can listen closer. Damn.

 

Haha... I figured it out! I don't know why I didn't se it before, but I took a look just a few minutes ago underneath and found the problem. It looks like the front end of the metal bracket holding the gas tank got bent outward towards the drive shaft and was scraping it. Saturday it was all the time until it eventually was bent back enough. When I loaded down the rear with some weight today it must have altered the drive shaft angle enough to cause it to scrape whenever I hit a bump.

What does this metal piece normally look like? I assume it's flat against the gas tank. How the hell would it get bent? I didn't do anything off road, nor did I notice hitting any branches or sticks that might have bent that out. I don't think I should be worried about the drive shaft but I guess I should spray some rustoleum on it. I wonder if there's a chance this was a Toyota defect...

 

Thank you Google and thank you Tacoma World!! I had the same problem. It sounded like it was the rear drums but it was that metal plate on the gas tank housing that was scraping on the drive shaft!! I simply bent it backwards and its running great. I started hearing the noise right before my desert trip and was like Oh Noooo. Thank you

 

Welcome to TW!

It would be interesting to find out how this has been occuring. Cameron didn't have any idea of how it could have happened. But, I would assume that the vehicle was normal and then at some point the bracket became bent? Seems very abritrary to me.

Hey Cameron - forgot all about his post when I happened to meet you a couple of weeks ago!!!

Bill

 

Glad you found this helpful! I'm also glad that it wasn't just me... One thing I've been meaning to do is sand down the scar left on the drive shaft and paint it black to prevent rusting. I was under there this weekend and was reminded of it. I still have no idea how it happened in the first place.

Good to meet you too Bill... The next time I see a Taco with multi-colored underbody lights I'll honk!

 

Thanks for mentioning sanding and repainting the shaft. I will need to do this as well but it's not that bad. Still want to make sure it doesn't rust.

 

This happened to me too. I was driving around this past winter when it was heavy snow (60 inches of snow in 6 weeks) and suddenly I heard this scraping noise. For 3 months I'd hear the noise on and off and thought it might be related to the brakes. After I got tires changed, noise was way worse -- maybe because the new tires changed the drive shaft angle or because of the lift used?

Finally crawled under there and noticed the bent sheet metal exactly as photographed by the original poster in this thread. I bent it back and all was quiet again.

Maybe some ice wedged itself in there and bent it out? I don't know.