Offroad-Express

In my 70 series landcruiser my handbreak isn't doing what it should. The handbreak can only hold the truck on slight inclines, but nothing more than that. When I got a w.o.f, the guys said it was at 25%.

The breaks are fine, so I don't think it can be the pads?

Any ideas as to what the problem could be?

Cheers.

First of all it is spelled BRAKE! Is it a drum only setup, i.e. drum does both handbrake and normal brake?

Toyota hand brakes are crap at the best of times...
Mine is a disc for main brakes and drum for hand brake.. The drums get full of dirt and they don't work..
Then they also go out of adjustment..
I adjust / clean mine regularly especially before a WOF.
Just one of those things...

The hand brake should be adjusted at the rear shoes, a lot of people take the slack out of the cables by adjusting the cables , and this ends up putting the wrong angle at the rear leavers. Start from the beginning, remove rear drums and inspect, if you haven't changed the rear shoes recently they will probably be stuffed, mud and crap grinds them out in no time, if linings are OK make sure cylinders are free and everything floats as it should, get someone to work the hand brake lever and see that it expands the shoes, apply pressure to the shoes with levers while testing , make sure adjusting wheel is free, back it off and if all OK refit drum. Now disconnect hand brake cables at backing plates, you are now ready to adjust shoes and you should have checked adjustment rotation while drum was off, using a brake clicker or screwdriver through slot click adjuster round till it goes hard and you can't turn the drum, now here is the tricky part you need to push the auto adjusting wheel lever away from the adjusting wheel so you can now click the adj;wheel back, use a thin screwdriver or anything suitable to go through the slot at the same time as you have got your adjusting clicker in there as well. Back the adjuster off till you can freely turn the drum, should only take about 4 clicks. Once you are happy reconnect the hand brake cables these should be backed off so they can be connected to the backing plate levers without them being moved, oops----- make sure the cables are free. If done correctly the hand brake will be as good as it's going to be and compared to some vehicles it's not that good. The best brakes I had was when I used Bendix 4WD pads and shoes. Hope this all makes sense. The rear shoes require adjusting after each mud or river trip, you will know by the brake pedal being low and the hand brake lever being nearly vertical.

THE JOYS OF 4WDING, get used to it,

FITZY.

^^^ just like Fitzy said and paticularly the last bit about having to regularly clean and re-adjust them after being in mud and shit. The FJ/BJ cruisers use the main rear brakes for the handbrake so they are decent sized shoes and drums unlike the LJ and 80 series cruisers that have tiny little handbrake shoes inside the rear disc rotors so you can get them to clamp up reasonably good and tight but the problem is they only last for 5 minutes and need cleaning out and re-adjusting again I biffed all that shit out and put rear discs with disc handbrakes on my trucks and the handbrakes piss over the old drums big time to the extent I can feel the drag when I forget to let the handbrake off when winching up banks and shit

They are supposed to self adjust when you put on hand brake ...check that they do when drums off ...that way as they wear they will adjust.

yep put up with shit hand brake for a few years now,my mwb cruiser has disc's on the rear and last's about one trip after adjustment ,I think it;s a cruiser problem .I think the mechanic gets sick of me asking about a real fix. .

Cheers for the replies

Ill take the drum apart in the w.e and have a gander.

Would it worth it to just put disk brakes on the back if the drums keep crapping themselves?

The best handbrake I have seen is the wife. Chuck one of them in the back and things should come to a standstill

Seriously though. A good one was to install a linelock / shutoff valve on the line going to the back brakes. Apply brake, close valve, bingo in braked mode.
Dave in Malaysia has this setup with the line fed up through the dash first so the valve is mounted in easy reach.

Might want to check line lockers operable from the cab are legal.

Pretty sure they ain't but its been awhile since I was in the modified car game.

I know hydraulic handbrakes needed a motorsport NZ cert.

Bj70swb wrote:Would it worth it to just put disk brakes on the back if the drums keep crapping themselves?

realistically you'd probably be looking at around a grand to source all the bits, get some brackets cut out, handbrake cables modified etc and get it LVVTA certified, its a good mod if you use the right componants and even better if you throw another 500 bucks at a second remote booster for the front brakes but its over to you to work out the cost/benefit if the conversions worth doing to your truck or not

I took the drums apart today and most things looked, operated O.K., just a bit dirty. The shoes were fine in both.

I cleaned everything and lubed up moving parts etc in both drums, however the adjusting wheel didn't turn in either when i tried with the screwdriver (the adjuster inside the drum)??

The first drum I took apart is working a bit better now.

But in the other drum I don't think the wheel cylinder operated as it should have? When the handbrake was pulled i felt little or no push from the shoes? Is this a wheel cylinder problem?

so it has the shoes on each side, the cylinder that moves when you apply the brake, then underneath that the piece of metal with the ajuster bit in the middle to turn around that winds it in and out to adjust it, this should wind round when you push on the tabs with a screwdriver

as thats the handbrake adjuster if you couldnt wind it round to push it out futher then it would have been a bit hard to get them working right!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w_X8rN8-Wk

this is a good video but dosnt show him adjusting the rod with the wheel on it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DpC0lXHP5o

this shows how to adjust the handbrake in the drum just looks a bit diffrent cause it dosnt have the hydralic cylinder in there, but is good cause it shows you witch part you need to move to adjust the handbrake(ie push the drums out closer to the cyclinder)

when pulling on the handbrake ignore what the hydralic cylinder is doing( this moves when you put your foot on the brake, dont press on the brake pedal when you have the drum off ethier!)

so you pull the drum off lift the hand brake lever up a a few clicks 1/4 the way,

then keep adjusting the shoes out by winding the wheel round out till you cant get the drum back on,

let the handbrake off, push the shoe on then see if it spins freely

now lift the handbrake up and it should be locked up

sidenote make sure at the handle end you still have some slack in the cable adjuster or unwind it a bit so next time you can just tighten up the cable a bit

*if the drums arnt moving at all when you are pulling the handbrake up and down, or one is and one isnt will either be a problem with the cable or the bits the cable attach to mite be sized or stuck somewhere,

i havnt adjusted a drum in a while so think i got it right haha