To all,

For a while now I've noticed that my rear brakes are locking up. I used to be able to roll down the street in neutral but now I can't. I plan to remove the rear drums, clean them with "brake cleaner" from autozone. After that I'm not sure what else to do. I heard that maybe I need to grease up something down there but I'm not sure what.
I've been driving the car like this, and I'm afraid I can damage something else.

Please help me out.

TIA,

maguirre
00' SR5, 5spd

 

Looking up? Don't you mean LOCKING UP?

Pull the drums off an see what's going on. Make sure your e-brake isn't locked up. Trace the ebrake cable to the mechanism by the rear wheel (one on each side - not sure of the technical name). A lot of times those corrode and get stuck.

 

Check if the diff seals are leaking. I am dealing with a similar problem right now - rear brake shoes (specifically the right side) stay engage after using the brakes. The right rear diff seal is leaking - right into the brakes, the gear oil is likely causing this behaviour. Will be changing the diff seals (along with bearings and what not) tomorrow.

 

Thats intresting...
It did the exact opposite for me...
The back brakes became useless once the gear oil started leaking into the drum...

 

Me too. I just got done doing both axle seals and a complete rear brake job including a resurface of the drums. Dealer wanted $1400. I did it all for under $100.

 

Yeah, when we got that quote fromt he stealership mom said
"You can all screw yourselves, I want my sons car back"
We ended up taking it to a guy who did it for half the price...
Did oyu do the work yourself to make it so cheap?

 

Yeah. And that "under $100" includes a really nifty tool for knocking in axle seals. Boy did that help! Those axle seals are a real pain to get in without the right tool.

I was running completely on front brakes when my seals leaked and saturated the rears. It was freaky.

 

Yeah same here...
My brakes in the front went premature...
One second they where working...
The next second i found my slef gridning to a hault on the side of the highway
(the pads gone and the metal to metal must have heated up to much and the front breakes locked...)
All fixed now...

 

Good advice kaneman. The techinal name is bellcranks. This also happened to me on my '99. If you search bellcrank you'll see that this problem is pretty common. I had to take mine apart and repeatedly smash them with a hammer to free them up while liberally applying penatrating oil. Then reassemble, lube 'em up with grease and slap 'em back on. The've been fine ever since. If you live in the rust belt or don't use the e-brake often this seems to happen more often...

 

Bellcranks.. Thats it. Thanks for reminding me of the name.

 

Ditto on that, those bellcranks are a definite weakness if you live anywhere near the rust belt.
Had the exact same issue with mine as well.

 

Once you get the bellcranks free and lubed - make certain to spray a little lube in boot when greasing your girl periodically.

 

Gear oil-saturated brake shoes will cause the brakes to lock up prematurely.

 

I have had this problem a couple of different times. Seals go and brakes get full of oil. When I take off the rear diff. plug, I have noticed some air pressure releasing from inside. Is there a breather that could be getting plugged and forcing the seals to go out?

 

That is possible. Check your breather for being clogged... and install an extender on it, takes about 10 minutes.

Usually, if there is no pressure in the diff - the more likely cause, however, would be dirt ruining the lip of the seal.

 

Why? This isn't the case for all of us with saturated shoes, so please explain...

 

x2

I still don't see how shoes saturadted in gear oil could cause a lock up...

 

When I replaced my seal, I had a very hard time pulling the drum off. The reason was the shoes were gummed up against the drum. Maybe with the heat a friction is does something to the already thick oil.

 

Just curious if you noticed the (2) threaded holes on the drum. You can get correctly pitched bolts and screw them in each hole to free the drum from the shoes and pull it off.

 

Saturating something in oil, especially brake shoes lining, doesn't necessarely make it more "slippery". Depends on how long that has been going on, what gear-oil and how much of it.

In my previous post consider "will" to be "might". =)