bjr

At 153,000 I put all brand new brake hardware on the rear and front. Pads, rotors, new clips, slide pins, drums, shoes, compete rear hardware kit.


3,000 miles later brakes seem to favor the front and squeak a little.


Inspection shows the front right brake to have a small amount of grooving to the rotor. Just enough to feel with fingernail. I suspected something either sticking or the fronts doing too much work. After inspecting everything else, I checked that the rears were working and they were weak. I could jack the whole rear up, push the pedal down and I could still spin the rear tires by hand if I tried with half of my strength. I tried to see if they would self adjust by backing up and stomping on the brakes, did it in forward. Also tried the parking brake. Drove it around and came back home. Did same test with the rear up in the air and brake pedal pushed and the wheels locked hard this time. Could not move them. I thought I was done.


3-4 weeks later. The car is showing signs of the rears not doing their fair share of work again. New symptoms are that if I am going 30-40 and slam on the brakes the right rear makes a clicking noise the last few feet. Also when I come to a stop then put it in park, every time I press and release the brake pedal it makes a squeak on releasing the pedal. It will do this every time BUT if I set the parking brake then do the pedal it only makes the noise the first time then stops.


When I did the brakes I had a couple of small problems orienting the piece that has the adjusting wheel on it and had to look at the other side and the service manual a few times before I was confident that it was right. I guess it could be in there the wrong way. I did the adjustment the day I installed them about making them lock then backing off 8 clicks.


I can see with the drums off that the parking brake makes all 4 shoes on both sides move in and out together. I can set the parking brake and barely pull away with it in drive - they are grabbing strong.


What I am desperate to find out but cannot find the information:


1) are they totally self adjusting?


2) how likely is the clicking noise the self adjusting wheel either cannot adjust far enough or has failed, etc.


3) can the adjusting wheel turn both directions? I swear when I put the brakes on that the wheel would click in either direction. Now that there is 3,000 miles on the shoes and I want to readjust and try again, I see that on both sides I can only move the wheel in one direction easily. If I try to move the other way the spring steel tab comes with the wheel up over top center and then gets wedged. I can lift it back over to the other side and turn the wheel again but this doesn't seem right. Is my memory correct about it clicking easily in either direction or is it a one way movement???


Not sure what else to ask right now but can probably answer more questions if you have experience with this.


I am almost certain that the front brakes are doing way too much work based on feel and excessive front brake temperatures/smell. I cannot find anything wrong with the rear brakes unless I put the adjuster in wrong. If you've done this before, each end has a fork shaped feature that slips into the backing plate or shoe (can't remember which right now) and one side of the fork is longer than the other side. I'm sure it matters and seems right compared to the manual but not confident it's right or even related.

bjr

It looks like I screwed up my first major repair in 20+ years


I had all of the hardware in the correct place but not adjusted tight enough. My mechanic said Scion drums are particularly tricky. They were so out of adjustment, where they were grabbing after 3,000 miles they made hot spots on the drums and hardened them. It cost me $15 inspection, $45 adjustment and $120 for two new drums. Considering the thousands and thousands of dollars ahead I am after all of these years I guess it is a lesson learned. I will not bother doing these drums again since I spent the money I would have saved and I do trust my mechanic. It's just that I like to do every repair I can.
Also they are NOT self adjusting and require inspection about every 30,000 miles or so. I got lucky that we got well over 130,000 miles out of the OEMs. Too bad I got 3,000 out of these but at least the shoes were OK. I have a service receipt from 2011 that my wife complained about a squeaking noise when you release the brake pedal and they charged me about $120 to resurface the drums and misc. charges. They said probably part of that was an overdue adjustment.
Once a year inspection from now on!
Hope this helps someone...

thirdgear

Rear Drum Brakes make clicking sound several days after replacing drums and brake shoes.
i just went thru the troubleshooting process to solve the clicking sound from the rear drum brakes. i read thru many different forum posts and finally found something that made sense. The tension springs that push the shoes up against the backplate were the problem.
i stretched them out and reinstalled. problem solves.
This seems like it would be more common knowledge but i guess not. so many people were scratching their heads.
it first started a few days after i changed out my drums and shoes. i started to hear the clicking when i would brake as i was slowing down. it progressively got louder. i took the drums off to inspect, saw nothing wrong and adjusted the shoes out to fit tighter. a few days later the clicking was back. a trusted mechanic suggested that the drum was warped. i replaced the drums with a different brand and adjusted the shoes out just a touch again. a few days later we had clicks again. Thats when i read someones post about the springs. He had replaced his springs but the new ones were not as strong as the ones that he had replaced. So i took my springs off and stretched them out. no clicking ...for now.
i could see the wear pattern on the shoes that were uneven horizontally. the weak spring would allow the shoes to drift away from the backplate and then spring back. This created the clapping sound or clicking that i heard.
I hope this helps. i appreciated that someone posted their problem and solution which helped me solve my problem. thanks. pay it forward.