I popped off my brake drum to discover the source of a metal-on-metal scraping sound to find that my return spring had snapped. I purchased a brake hardware kit and replaced all of the springs. Now i'm trying to get the RETURN SPRING back on, and it simply won't go.

Called a company about purchasing the SST, but it was $40 and would not be available until May 26th. Noticed SEARS has various brake spring tools, but I'm not sure if they are directly applicable.

(1994 4Runner 4x4 SR5 v6)

Any ideas?

 

There are no springs on the rear brakes from a 2nd gen or 3rd gen 4Runner that I haven't been able to take apart and put back together with a pair of needle nose vise grips, or needle nose pliers (and safety glasses, of course).

 

Ya vise grips and some bloody knuckles should do the trick. Does for me.....

 

X3 on what was said above, and a few choice words always helped me.....lol!

 

Finally got that beast of a spring back on using a long flathead screwdriver leveraged against a phillips head screwdriver inserted into a hole in the brake shoe.

 

Creativity.....the best tool of all.