Brake Issues with 01 Tacoma

Hi, so when I got my 2001 Tacoma about 9 months ago I knew the brakes needed some love, so I replaced the pads and calipers and bled the brakes myself, only to notice a very slight different. I was slacking on working on it for a while so I finally took it to a local shop recently (they know their stuff, or so I though) to get some professional help on the brake system, and they then went on to replace the master cylinder I think like 5 times, bleed and replace the fluid, fiddle with the caliper placement and pretty much go over the entire brake system. They looked at the calipers and pads too, so even if I installed them wrong they would have caught that.

When they were done, it definitely stopped better but had an awful rubbing sound when braking and sometimes scratching like the heat shield was bent and rubbing the rotor, so I took it back and let them look at it again. The guy that was there then worked on it for like 15 minutes and said the “hardware was too close”, so I took it for a drive and low and behold it was right back to where I started, no rubbing but poor braking. I wanna take it back to them but I also wanted to consult this forum since it seems like there’s a lot of good advice here. Anyone know what’s up? Thanks for the help in advance.

 

Have you ever taken a look at the rear brake shoes to see if they are oily from leaky rear axle seals? This happens a lot on 1st gen tacomas. Is your brake booster leaking vaccum? This happens a lot too.

An oddity on these brake systems that is overlooked by most repair shops is the Load Sensing Proportioning Valve in the rear; it requires air bleeding and has to be adjusted properly.

Is the issue with the rear brakes mostly?

 

I have not looked at the rear brake shoes, I’ll definitely try doing that. I think it’s not the brake boosters because they looked at that but I’ll also take a look myself. That load sensing proportion sensor valve might just be it! I do think most of the issues are from the rear, the shop guys said they were having trouble getting pressure from the rear while the front was fine. This is definitely helpful, thank you very much!!

 

Most brake experts will not be familar with the proportioning valve on the tacoma because they haven't taken time to research it. That makes it a challenge to get anyone to diagnose it properly. It allows more fluid to flow into the rear brakes when more weight is placed in the bed that makes the lever act on the mechanism in the LSPV, and sometimes the LSPV just goes bad or gets clogged with rust.

Tacoma brakes are considered by many to be substandard. If you really want to improve them you can do the Tundra brakes upgrade (many write-ups here and youtube videos can be found). You need 16" wheels to fit the larger calipers. Get the ones with the L in the part # that stands for long. After that install bleed the whole system with the Load sensing proportioning valve last.