ok, i read on another Toyota Tacoma forum that the rear brakes are self adjusting. These are the steps they say to follow:

1. Start truck
2. Put transmission gear selector in R
3. Take foot off brake and apply gentle pressure to accelerator pedal
4. Take foot off accelerator pedal and put it on brake pedal
5. Depress brake pedal
6. Repeat

Does this sound right to anyone???

Actually it is vise-versa, using your (rear) brakes adjusts your parking brake. There is a little spring inside the rear drum that gets pulled when you activate the brakes. As it pulls it ratchets a toothed wheel which in turn tightens the parking brake. I am not positive of this on your Tacoma but it is this way on a 4Runner. I would check the spring and see that it hasn't broken or is not stretched out or damaged. Should be easy either way. Until then be sure to leave it in gear when parked on an incline.

They are and this is how they work, but... they don't seem to do a very good job of keeping the brakes adjusted snug as they should be..

I manually adjust my brakes (using the brake star wheel) then the handbrake pulls tight where it should...

I also recommend not touching the handbrake cable adjustment unless you first properly adjust the brakes themselves using the starwheel adjustment and only then (if needed) mess with the parking brake cable adjustment...

One caveat.. if you are not familar with the starwheel adjuster and where the self adjuster makes contact with it, you might want to pull the brake drum off and look at it closely.. shown below


As with many self adjusting brakes you can turn the starwheel in the direction to tighten up the brake shoes, but you need to stick a second screwdriver in the slot to lift the self adjuster off the starwheel before you can turn it backwards if you need to loosen the adjustment.. It's easy once you get the hang of it..

Sean and Dandeman, thanks for the insight. And great picture too! Like is said above, once the weather gets nicer around here, i'm planning on getting more familiar with my tacoma, starting with the brakes. Thanks again everyone! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Keep in mind that if you adjust your rear brakes correctly, your front brakes will tighten as well, so your brake pedal will take much less pressure to apply your front brakes. In other words your front brakes at first, might seem very touchy, so when you test drive your Taco be caution at first.

Good Luck.

Ok, well the weather was nice enough this weekend to go out and get to know my tacoma rear brakes a little better. I got as far as getting the tire off, and ran into some problems. I couldn't get the drum off. I didn't have a rubber mallet handy, and didn't feel like banging it with a metal hammer. Also, it felt like the drum was on there pretty tight, so i thought maybe the brakes were holding the drum on there. I went to look for the access hole in the backing plate so i could get to the adjusting screw to back off the brakes, but I couldn't find it. I've got some pictures are the link below. Maybe you guys can give me some insight and more advise. Thanks for all the help so far!!

http://www.geocities.com/mattletts/mypage.html

Simple fix. See the threaded holes located next to the wheel lugs...get a bolt (match the thread size) and screw it into this hole. This will release the drum from the hub. Mine did the same thing, and found after removed that rust had basically welded the two together. Anyway, this is the most efficient and safest way to break the drum loose that I know. Hope it helps.

thanks for the tip. I'll hit up the hardware store for some bolts that fit. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

One time I tried removing them with the parking brake on.<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shame.gif" alt="" />That didn't work too well. LOL.