Offroad-Express

Was doing some light offroading yesterday and noticed a burning smell when driving back, found the LHS back hub was burning hot and the brake was stuck on! brakes were working perfectly before, I replaced the rear shoes over a year ago with no problem. absolutely no mud or water got in cos didnt go into any bogs. This has also happened before twice on my old 60 series!
I managed to unadjust the shoe (which is almost impossible) whilst lying in a fridgid puddle and now the brakes work perfectly again for the last 150ks I drove today.
why does this happen? how is that ratchet wheel thing adjusting itself?

xorph wrote:Was doing some light offroading yesterday and noticed a burning smell when driving back, found the LHS back hub was burning hot and the brake was stuck on! brakes were working perfectly before, I replaced the rear shoes over a year ago with no problem. absolutely no mud or water got in cos didnt go into any bogs. This has also happened before twice on my old 60 series!
I managed to unadjust the shoe (which is almost impossible) whilst lying in a fridgid puddle and now the brakes work perfectly again for the last 150ks I drove today.
why does this happen? how is that ratchet wheel thing adjusting itself?

I know in my surf the easy way to tighten them is to put the handbrake on and reverse. Made sure your handbrake is releasing properly?

Hi

Was the slave cylinder stuck or the self adjusting screw done up?

The handbrake will self adjust the back brakes each time you pull it on. are all the bits in the right place. I have had problems were I have not re assembled things correctly causing a similar issue.....

I know in my surf the easy way to tighten them is to put the handbrake on and reverse.

The handbrake will self adjust the back brakes each time you pull it on.

I didnt realise they self adjusted, so I did some research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_brake

That is a very clever system!
you guys are right. When you pull the handbrake on, at the end of its stroke it picks up on the ratchet pawl which rotates the adjusting rod a bit. think the idea is that when the brakes are too loose the handbrake has more travel, so it picks up the adjusting pawl, and when brakes are right you shouldnt be able to pull it up far enough that it will adjust the rod.
Hmm I think the design flaw here is toyota underestimated how hard you can pull on a handbrake!
I tend to use the handbrake a lot when I need delicate control in perilous situations. may have to modify that to heel and toe style braking without the handbrake.