Drum Brake Issues

[Thirty-Nine]

I recently did the front discs and the rear drums, but I'm having an issue with the drums.

I had one of the rubber caps pop off the brake cylinder. This caused fluid to leak out, and the spring to come out as well. I reinstalled the spring, finished the drum, and bled it.

I tried the handbrake, and it was very loose, so I went and adjusted the star wheels, and that seemed to fix it—for a while.

Last week I was driving the car and the pedal felt spongy; odd. When I got to my destination, I pulled the handbrake and it was super loose; it did nearly nothing.

So now I have spongy brakes and a non-functioning handbrake. I'm about to simply just bring the darn thing into a shop and have them fix it. But is there anything you can think of that I've done wrong? This isn't my first brake job, but this has me stumped. The only thing I can think is that perhaps the brake adjuster's notches are facing the wrong way? But that doesn't explain the spongy brakes.

[pb2k]

I'm not sure if this is a mechanics snipe hunt, but reversing the car a a decent speed and then braking hard supposedly auto adjusts drum brakes.

[ex-x-fire]

You need to manually adjust the brake up to a slight drag on the drum.

[Thirty-Nine]

Originally Posted by ex-x-fire

You need to manually adjust the brake up to a slight drag on the drum.

Yes, I did that. Now that I'm thinking about it, I bet you anything I swapped the left for the right side on the brake shoe adjusters. So instead of adjusting outwards, they're adjusting inwards, hence lack of e-brake and mushy pedal.

[remcafee]

i know how to fix your drums so you neverhave to worry about adjusting, lubing, worrying about noise, etc... rear disc swap.

[IndestructibleYaris]

Swapping to discs is a nightmare, more so than the highly adequate drum brakes that only need serviced once every 200k miles, if that.

Double check the adjusters and fluid level. If fluid level good then the mechanical aspect inside the drum has been assembled wrong or something rusted or came loose

Good luck

[remcafee]

swapping to discs is not a nightmare, if you can count to 10 and open a door knob, you can rear disc swap your yaris

[tmontague]

Chances are good that you simply installed the star adjuster incorrectly. This causes it not to "lock" into it's new position as you tighten it. Therefore you continuously have a loose pedal feeling as the brake shoes keep backing away from the drum.

I'm pretty sure I made that mistake years back and it was caused by the same issue.

Remove the drums and check that your star adjustment it holding.

[ex-x-fire]

I don't know why anyone would get their drum parts mixed together, do one side at a time.

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by ex-x-fire

I don't know why anyone would get their drum parts mixed together, do one side at a time.

The above issue can happen if the star adjuster locking finger is installed upside down. This can easily happen even if one side is done at a time. Even with pictures taken before disassembly it is hard to see which way it goes.

Exploded parts diagrams are the best help here.

[zimmer]

Originally Posted by tmontague

Chances are good that you simply installed the star adjuster incorrectly. This causes it not to "lock" into it's new position as you tighten it. Therefore you continuously have a loose pedal feeling as the brake shoes keep backing away from the drum.

I'm pretty sure I made that mistake years back and it was caused by the same issue.

Remove the drums and check that your star adjustment it holding.

My friend is looking at this Yaris with spongy brake. The owner mentioned his son messed with the drum brake before. We'll check it out after we installed the headache rack and tonneau covers on the truck this weekend.