So here recently my brakes have became very touchy. So touchy that I’m fuel mileage has went down and engine temps have went up a little due to the motor worked hard to drive down the road... It’s getting frustrating to say the least. You could press the brakes with one finger and the truck will come to a fast stop. Once you take the truck out of gear and coast it’s more of a soft brakes rather than a coast.. I’m at a loss with this thing.

 

Sounds like your e-brake is not releasing.
please list your make model and year.
Make sure your parking brake handle is fully released, jack up the rear end and see if one or both rear brakes are dragging.

 

Thank you I’ll try that tomorrow and the truck is a 1991 Toyota pickup 22re 4x4

 

The ebrake has one wire that comes from the handle. It splits into to wires for each wheel on top of the axle. The part that splits it is mounted on a pivot of sorts. This pivot balances out left to right. 90% of cases, this sucker is frozen solid.
Replace, or open it up a bit, put grease in there and leave it open

 

I definitely will check that today, it was so rough this morning I had to take my wife’s car to work

 

On many Toyota trucks there is a bell crank (lever) on the backing plate for each rear drum that tends to seize up. this is the reason I suggested checking if one or both rear brakes are dragging before you proceed.
If both are dragging check for slack in the cables, if the cables are slack check the bell cranks (if equipped that way) and help them back to their normal position (top toward the backing plate).

IF the parking brake is the reason for your dragging feeling you have assuredly heated up the rear drums and warped them. So you will probably get some terrible vibrations until you replace or resurface the drums (most likely you will need new drums).

 

^^ He should be jacking up the rear axle under the diff anyhow, to get a feel for the brakes one has to spin the tires. He will see the cable, starts pulling things... Pretty quick he will be starting a thread on how to get the darn brake drums off.


OP, any updates?

 

I just checked the rear axle it seems to be fine. I jacked the front up and I feel like my caliber are tight

 

Did you look at the E-brake cables, or the bell cranks, like Akwheeler suggested?

You really need to elaborate more on exactly what you're doing/checking in order for people to be able to help you. We are not standing in front of your truck, or lying underneath it, which makes you the absolute best person to look/see/feel/hear what exactly is going on with your vehicle.

 

This points us in a whole new direction.
Are the front wheels very hard to turn by hand? BOTH or just ONE?
If your front brakes are dragging what I would check first would be to jack up the front end, spin the front tires by hand to see how hard they both are to turn, crack open a bleeder and see if they are suddenly easy to spin.
If only the side you cracked the bleeder on gets better (or if only one side was hard to spin in the first place) you have a restriction in the line or hose to that side.
If both sides get better it is most likely a bad master cylinder or the brake pedal pushrod isn't adjusted properly.
If neither side gets any better after cracking the bleeders open the calipers are seized.
Let us know what happens!
By the way, the same story applies with warped brakes here, you probably need front rotors and pads at least.

 

sorry about that, I checked from where to cable spilt all the way to the drums, no slack in cables or springs.
As far as the calibers seeming to be tight, I jacked the front of the truck up and and spun the tires, tires will spin but only for a very few seconds. Started the truck got my wife to engage the brakes/ then disengage the brakes I spun them and engaged to brakes again. It does sound gritty when the tires are spun. After I checked everything I could think of I grabbed a can of good ol PB blaster. I sprayed the sliding rods that holds the brake pads on both front calibers.. I let it set for 10-15 minutes, took it for a drive and seems to be back to normal. I’ll drive it tomorrow more to see if the tight brakes happens again.

 

thanks! If what I’ve done so far doesn’t help then I’m going to give this a try tomorrow!

my only question is it’s intermittent, sometimes it will happen and then go away after the truck sets for a couple hours.

I had a gentleman suggest to rebuild the calipers, would it be worth it or just buy brand new one?

 

I am a fan of replacing rather than rebuilding. The cost of calipers has come down over the years and the time it takes to rebuild them is just not worth the savings to me. Just make sure you do them in pairs or you will likely end up with a pull to one side when you hit the brakes.

 

Right. I can get both for $50 on rockauto. If what I’ve done doesn’t fix the issue I feel like new calipers are in my new future

 

I don't know what your money situation is, but if you are going to replace the calipers and there has been any excessive heat buildup in the rotors you may as well plan to replace them too. That means packing the wheel bearings and putting in new seals too.
For another few bucks you can do the rubber brake hoses as well and you will be 100% new on the front brakes and hopefully not have to do anything to them for years to come.

 

thanks for the insight I’ll be pricing the parts you suggested to give self a ball park figure of what I’ll be looking at!

 

Update on brakes what I done yesterday didn’t help at all. I stopped at a stop sign that normally my would roll back if I took my foot off the brake but, it never moved. Taking off from a stop in first gear it seems to struggle a bit as if I was power breaking the truck so obviously my calipers are sticking or seized. I’m going to try later today as AKWHEELER suggested with the brake lines to see if that helps if not then it seems that new calipers rotor and pads are next..

 

how common is it for the master cylinder to go bad. (I replaced it a little over a year ago, along with the brake booster).
you mentioned that the brake pedal push rod might not be adjusted properly, how would I adjust that?

*UPDATE* drove it home after PT (I’m in the army) still did the same things, brakes seeming to drag. Changed and went back to work with no issues at all. Drove perfect, didn’t feel no dragging of the brakes acceleration was much better and went to coast to a stop and coasted much better.. this is what I was trying to explain earlier it’s not constant it’s sporadic.

 

I've certainly had aftermarket parts that where just broken / really bad. Went through 3 Napa refurb alternators once.

 

Stupid question, but did you try bleeding the brakes completely?
MAybe the booster has the problem, not the master! It's just permanently helping you