2006 2WD TRD Rear end lockup

My son has a 2006 that we recently bought with 138K miles. Today we drove into town to pick up a animal from the vet and pulling into the gravel parking lot the rear end locked up. We were probably going less then 5 MPH. He put it in park, backed it up and it worked fine.

After getting home, driving up our gravel driveway it did the same thing. He says his foot was off the brake and off the accelerator. Getting out, and looking at the skid marks, it looked like the rear passenger wheel locked. He could not go forward. I had him pump the brakes, try park to fwd, no luck. He put it in reverse, it backed up and then was OK to drive forward.

So tomorrow, I got to get it up on jacks and take a look.

1. Going to check drums and shoes. - Looking for oil in drums from bad seals.
2. Will check drive shaft and u-joints.

Anything else to check? Am I on the right track to diagnosing what might cause this? Scary to think what would happen at a high speed if this occurred!!

 

Given that it goes fine in reverse and not so well in forward, I'd be willing to bet you have a rear (drum) brake problem, not a drive shaft / universal joint problem. Jack the rear end up and try turning each wheel. My bet is the right rear is locking up - probably due to a bad parking brake cable. You might be able to temporarily free it up by flexing it back and forth. You may have to cut it to free it up enough to get the drum off.

 

Pulling the passenger side wheel off we found the problem. One of the shoe spring pins broke or rotted off and the spring and spring washer were wedged between the pads and drum. Trashed the drum and the shoes. About a pound of brake dust was inside the drum. Never seen this before, but an easy fix. Just ordered new drums, shoes, and spring kit for it.

 

We did a full rear brake service with new Raybestos shoes, spring kits and new drums and we are back in running order. Took several hours with the firs side being the slowest as it has been probably 20 years since I had touched a set of drum brakes. Second side went pretty quick after learning on the first side.