kylrocks

I was recently enlightened by this brilliant forum and I was hoping to ask a few questions myself. Recently I have been driving around town and after about 10-15 minutes of driving my rear drums seem to want to take over and get tighter and tighter without lettting up. Being the masochist that I am, I want to see if I could get some sort of result by driving faster and It seems that this does work eventually but not without being able to "smell" the pads. I have also noticed that the pedal is extremely stiff.......

The fluid is fine.....This one has thrown me for a loop. Thank you in advance for any info.

By the way, I just bought this thing about 3 weeks ago with idea of a complete restoration with a 22RE and a M/T.

94runner 3.0VZE 4X4 A/T........for now

celica

with everything cold jack up the rear of the truck and try spinning the rear tires. If they don';t spin freely then your rear brakes are dragging and they need to be backed off. You should also pull the drum to see if the shoes are toast and if the drums need turning or need to be replaced.

FastCat

I've seen this before...

You have something blocking the expansion of the brake fluid as it warms up at the rear wheels. For some reason, perhaps a problem with the proportioning valve or some bad seals due to fluid contamination, the brake fluid cannot expand back to the master cylinder as the fluid gets hot, and the result is the only place it has to expand into is the wheel cylinder, which engages the brakes.

The stiff pedal is also an indication that the blockage is preventing the brake fluid from being pumped down to the wheels when it is occurring.

Creating the problem is not a matter of how far you drive, but how often you apply the brakes to get the fluid at the wheels hot.

Tracking down the source of the blockage is not going to be easy, and you might do well to replace any non-metallic brake line components, and flushing/replacing your brake fluid.

kylrocks

Very good advice so far......I really appreciate the help. I will post when I get to the root of this.
Kyle

kylrocks

I just went drving around and as soon as the brakes started to get tight I would reach under and bleed off the pressure with the engine off. I bled the brakes like you would if you were trying to get the air out of the lines. I dont know that this completely solved my problem but, the rear drums are not locking up like they were and seem to working fine for the time being. I dont know what to think about 'my solution' but thought I would pass it on.

FastCat

Yep, that's the only way to relieve the pressure in the lines, but you're going to get tired of having to stop and bleed the brakes all the time. Don't forget to keep the brake fluid level full after bleeding the lines.

BTW - did you happen to see what the fluid looked like? Was it clear or did it have a milky color?

Fluid contamination is what I remember being the cause of it when I saw that happening.