Broken rear brake shoe pin

When I switch from summer to winter tires, and back again, I always inspect my brakes. I have been watching the rears and they are still a long way from needing replacement. While towing a trailer a couple weeks back, one of the rears tried to lock and at first I thought it was ABS, then maybe traction control? Road conditions were changeable and I was towing right at the limit. I shut off the traction control and made it home with no further grief. When I swapped to my winters, I found that one of the shoes retaining pins had broken. The retaining washer had made it's way between the shoe and drum causing it to partly lock up. No real damage to the shoe or drum, so I replaced the pin, spring and retainer (all 4). It wasn't on my radar as part of the shoe replacement I was eventually going to do. Toyota wanted $78 CAN for 4 springs, pins and retainers. Picked up the whole Raybestos kit with everything for $31. Pins were rusted to the point of failure. Now I know...... Although, that's the only vehicle in my 'fleet' With drum brakes. Even my '65 'Vair has discs all around ;-)

 

Nothing to add, other than to complement your cost-effective repair, and share in your lamentation...

Drum brakes are utterly inferior to discs and have no place on passenger vehicles (much less pickup trucks) in the 21st century.

There are some who disagree, of course, but all we can do is pray that they don't tailgate us.

Cheers from the US!

 

Thanks for that. I agree. Took my Dads' '40 Ford for a spin a couple days ago. the front secondary carb of the 3x2 stuck open. I two foot braked to pull over and hit the kill switch. He built up the motor, but the brakes were stock drums all around. They wouldn't stop the car, yikes!