Heres the scenario

Im driving home last night excited about picking up my tires on Thursday and as Im coming around the last corner of my drive i hear a loud thunk and an indescribably horrifying sound. My first thought of the sound was that my stock brush guard had fallen off for some reason and I was dragging it under my truck. This is close to what it sounded like. The sound lasted approximatly 2 seconds and then stopped all together. I drove up the street to where I could pull over and while stopping I immediately noticed my brakes felt very mushy. I pulled my E-brake and the handle came all the way out and wouldnt engage the brakes. This leads me to believe that I have a problem with the rear brakes. I shimmied under the truck this morning and I noticed some fluid leaking near the rear drivers side axel but nothing else out of the ordinary and nothing to explain the very loud sound last night. I am totally stumped as to what is going on besides the fact that I believe it is a rear brake problem. Also FYI I have had brake work done in the past 12 months on both the front and the back brakes including replacing warped rotors and calipers in the front and resurfacing drums in the back and new pads all around. Any ideas on what is causing this?

 

Sounds like one of the actuators or pins has got loose and got caught between the brake pads and the drum. And probably destroyed something. Just take of your drum and have a look. It probably will be very noticable when it made a sound that hard. And leaks brake fluid.
Good luck.

 

Would that cause me to lose pressure and have a mushy pedal???

 

A brake fluid leak somewhere...air in the system, loss of pressure.

I doubt it would make a noticeable sound, but one of your rear brake cylinder could be leaking really badly. However, that shouldn't just all of the sudden cause you to lose your brakes...I would think it would be gradual. Like 4Runner4ever said, pull of your drums and visually inspect everything.

 

I took it into the shop today because being in an apartment I dont have a real place to do repairs like that. They told me that there is a problem with the back brakes and they will be replacing the springs and the pins because they were sticking badly and causing the brakes to wear prematurely. All in all it is not going to be a very costly repair...under $200 and I'm still picking up my tires this afternoon after my truck is done!

 

That's not too bad. But I wonder were that fluid was coming from? I don't see you mentioning anything about that. I hope they check your actuators properly.

 

Im sorry I didnt postthe answer regarding the fluids...the fluid is a rear axle leak that will need to be fixed shortly down the line. I know there is a possibility that this may get into the brakes and foul them up so I plan on taking care of it as soon as financially possible. Thank you for the diagnosis 4runner4ever...It looks like you were right on with your thinking.

The other thing that I didnt post this morning was the fact that when I was driving over there this morning the symptoms went away. Halfway through the drive I had a firm brake pedal again and when I got there my E-brake was engaging. My guess would be this happened due to whatever was stuck, unsticking itself as I know cars do not magically fix themself.