Tacoma soft brake behavior

You got some issues there.

The second picture looks like the parking brake cable is rusted away.

The forth picture looks like the top of the shoe has not too much wear and the bottom is gone, uneven wear.

I’d disassemble, one side at a time so if you get lost you have something to look at to get it back together, or take pictures first. It looks like the mount for where the cable goes in is replaceable, not certain. You might need new backing plates if no. I’m under mine today so I’ll look.

See, there’s a threaded fastener sticking out.

 

With the looks of the wear and dust coating on everything would it be worth just getting a drum kit and replacing all the insides?

There's got to be something that's causing the shoes to stick and wear like that. Possibly the cause of my locked rear wheel

 

Just curious, you mentioned that it had a 2" lift in it. Was it that way when you bought it or did you do the lift? The reason I ask is I had a 2012 that the previous owner had done an add a leaf and a small 1 1/2" lift. In taking that out I noticed they had removed the E brake cable brackets at the rear wheels and zip tied them out of the way. They did that because the lift made the cables too tight. I think they make a modified cable for lift kits to compensate for that. Maybe with the lift you have, that was not done and that explains why that cable attatchment is broken because it was too tight, that would lead to the E brake being on and off depending on the rear axle movement and the uneven wear on that rear shoe. Just a thought, follow that cable from the drum back to the front and look for a sheet metal bracket that looks real rusty , wraps around the cable and has a hole in it to mount to the front spring hanger.

 

Replace shoes, drums and hardware. Clean up the contact points on the backing plate and apply grease. Hopefully there aren't any huge grooves

Are the wheel cylinders leaking?

 

Thinking why would the shoe wear like that. Possibly it got adjusted too tight. Are all pictures of the same side? Then I wonder why would the right shoe wear like that and the left one seems normal. I think all that rust has everything not working like it should. Maybe the left shoe is rusted to the backing plate and doesn’t move.

 

The truck had the lift when I bought it. Not too sure. I'll take a look at the e brake cables to see if there's an issue up the line.

All the pictures were from the passenger side, however the drivers side looked very similar.

 

Is the cable attatchment on the drivers side where it bolts to the backing plate broken too?

 

Here is a picture of the passenger side bracket I mentioned earlier. One on the drivers side also. They keep the emergency brake cables from flopping around but are pretty tight with out a lift being installed. When I saw mine on the other truck had been taken off and zip tied out of the way,I tried to reattatch one and couldn't cuz it was too tight. I removed the lift block and the added half leaf to restore the truck to the original height. I was able to reattatch the brackets and never had a problem.

 

I pretty much has the same soft pedal issues as the OP with the brakes. My truck was over 11 years on the road and never had a brake fluid change. I had a local shop flush and bleed the system as they had the machine to do the ABS module correctly. I would say it solved about 90% of the problem. I still am on original brakes at 80k and suspect that when I replace pads (something I can do myself) it will remedy the last 10% of the ussue

 

They are broken in similar ways on both drivers and passengers sides

 

Thanks I will be replacing components in the rear drums then I will get everything flushed with fresh fluid to see if that helps my issue.

 

Yeah, I kinda thought so. I'll bet those brackets I sent you a picture of are still attatched also. Probably bent or distorted some too.

 

Do you guys think that whatever style lift is in the truck that it could have an affect on the Brake proportional valve?

 

Update:

I changed all the brake shoes and hardware in the rear drums and that seemed to help with my overall braking ability.

The pedal action still feels a little soft so I will be bleeding them tomorrow and see if that'll help with anything