True enough about the t-case e-brake. Howeverm for a point of reference, my '74 FJ55 Land Cruiser had a t-case mount drum! parking brake from the factory. It hardly ever worked because any sort of oil off the engine, tranny or t-case seemed to find it's way back into that drum and the oil soaked shoes would not hold very well.

I think the Front Range kit uses turned down solid axle front rotors for the Supra calipers. The mounting brackets are not that complex, just two tabs off the backing plate mounting bolts (of course in the FF kit, that is off of the spindle mounting bracket).

Conventional ebrakes won't lock all 4 either (except through the driveshaft, like a driveshaft ebrake). The tcase ebrake will work even if the rear brakes fail or a semi-floating axle breaks and the drum slides out, locking the front via the front axles if the hubs are locked.
Different situation, eh? Those weren't ebrakes, they were the primary brakes!

Fair enough about the apple. But... with 29s, you hate the brakes? Something else is wrong that may be quite cheap to fix.

The brakes are a bad design. Most drum brakes dont stay properly adjusted for more than a few months. Even tractor trailers with "automatic slack adjusters" will be out of adjustment when the drums get hot. DOT has a field day siteing trucks for mis adjusted brakes. The E brake setup is even worse and prone to the levers rusting up at the piviot point preventing them at first from releasing correctly, thus dragging the brake, then fom being engaged at all. There is also no where near enough levrage on the handle even when they are working correctly, it requires a shoulder poping yank to get the e brake to engage due the the poor leverage. I have recently replaced the entire E brake cable and I end up servicing (taking apart, soaking the levers and removing the rust) every time I inspect the truck in the summer. I just hate them. Disc are so much easier to maintain and work so much better. I did not expect such a big differance but when I converted my Mustang to rear disc I was amazed at the extra and evenly applied stopping power, The E brake is also self adjusting (in the calipers) and works all the time every time, just as well down hill as up. Drum brakes are "self energising" in one direction only and tend to slip more backwards.
I do like the 4 piston front brakes, good power there but mine have been prone to jam when you try to push them back in for brake replacement even when the dust boots are intact. Its almost better to remove the dust boots and clean the pistons than risk jaming or blowing the seals by trying to push them back in. With a 4 piston caliper and two calipers, this turns a 1.5 hour brake job into an all day event. Its faster just to run out and get a new caliper and replace it if one jambs up on you.
Also, since I did put rear disc on my 5.0 my front brakes wear half as fast since the rear now work. The car handles WAY better on the binders now. The only concern is the posibility of needing a prop valve but I have found in most cases the volume it takes to work stock size rear disc is about the same or less that what it takes to push the drums often dialing in a bit of rear trail brak bias wich is good since it allows the front to lock up well after the rear so you can still stear under hard braking. Ony concern is with this pickup with a soft long travel suspension and being so light in the back that it will get so skidish, testing will tell if a prop valve is in order or not.
I hate durms, I hate these drums even more.

These are one of the best designed drum brakes I've worked on, to be honest. The only problems I've ever had with them up here in MN is the parking brake arms freezing due to lack of use (and subsequently, the rear brakes not being properly adjusted). I think you are suffering from the need to go through and PROPERLY inspect, clean, repair, and adjust your rear drums and LSPV.



Uh.. you NEVER want rear brake bias to the point that the rears will lock up before the front. I dont' think a single factory has put out a vehicle with that setup, and for good reason; when the back locks up, despite your statement, you have no ability to steer the vehicle in a safe manner.

I have had noting but trouble with them. Im in Pa and this time of year its always a problem, between salt, snow, slush ice and road dirt, its a problem every year. They are junk. I throw new hardware at them every year, they work great for a few months, then its back to junk. If drums were ok or better, they would be on the front of cars as well. Very few new cars have rear drums. Motorcycles did away with them years ago. The last gen for dual actuated drum breaks were very good but required alot of adjustment as well.
When I say rear bias I do not mean the rears are doing more stopping than the fronts. The fronts will always do between 60% and 80% more work. Thats why I run 13" 4 piston cobra calipers up front and 11.5 singes in the back. Perhaps I should just say more rear bias than stock. I mean the rears engage just before the fronts, and lock just before the fronts.
As a driver, I never want my front brakes to lock first. All control is lost at that point. To much rear brake bias is a big problem, you have to go look at the skid marks on a down hill lock up. The goal is for all 4 lock up with in a few inches of each other with the back locked first. Tell me, going down hill in rain or snow what good does it do you to have the fronts locked up with the rears still turning? With the rears on the edge of lock or locked it puts more weight over the front axle for more grip, if the fronts lock first it can actually unload the weight tranfer as the back of the car tries to rotate over the front. you know were your at getting max stopping power with the fronts still turning. If you have to lock up all 4 things have gone very bad and there is not much else to do. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" />

if your rear's lock up first you're going to be in a whole lot more trouble than if your fronts did. your rear end will just spin around, no good.

but about the fror full floater kit, i remember crashyota telling me he spent at least 1,200 on it, maybe more. since his truck was totalled, i think the rear axle is up for sale now if he didn't sell it already. that would be a lot cheaper than getting all the parts yourself.

I agree that the '86-up Toy drums work great... IF kept clean. The only time I've ever had problems with them was when they were gummed up with mud. Other than that they've been flawless. They are also PLENTY strong- its the stock proportioning valve that makes them weak, and the problem seems even worse when you add larger tires. An aftermarket manually adjustable valve can easily get the rear drums to lock up too early, so the brakes themselves are not the problem.

The FROR kit is the best there is for a Toyota, but I agree that its expensive and far more than what you need. Even most heavy duty wheelers will never break a stock rear axle shaft.

The Sky kit is affordably priced and seems to work well. However, I've yet to read of anyone who was happy with how the e-brake function of GM calipers performs. They are also sensitive to adjustment, not to mention expensive. A lot of people who went this route did it mainly so that they could do a rear disk swap and still be able to pass an inspection.

The t-case brakes work very well when adjusted properly (far better than stock), unfortunately its not an option for you.

The bottom line is that there is no cheap/easy/complete rear disk kit available. You have to compromise somewhere...

As others have written, maintainence is the key for the toyota truck e-brake (the ones I'm familiar with are on second gen trucks), but when they get bad they are a real bugger. Around here in the rust-belt the e-brake arms on the backing plates need annual attention, but the frame mounted bellcrank between the front and rear cables (halfway back on the passenger frame rail) almost never gets any attention and ends up useless after about five winters, which makes the system non-functional. When you get to that point rebuilding the original system is a pretty serious undertaking and a disk conversion starts to look real attractive, but I think there are more problems with the common disk conversions than it seems like at first glance. Like the problem of lateral runout on a disk mounted to the end of a semi-floating axle when you have a fixed mounted caliper. I've read that many people who go that route get excessive pedal travel that they can't get rid of. It seems like Front Range's full floater axle kit solves the runout problem which should make it easier to get a good pedal. I'd like to make that upgrade, but I can't jusify the expense for my situation.

I'm currently running '86+ drums without the ebrake parts. They work fine and they are totally simple to service; I just have to adjust them manually a every couple of months. I think they would be even better if I replaced the factory load-sensing-proportioning-valve (LSPV) with a manual proportioning valve. A t-case mounted aftermarket e-brake is high on my list as well.

This is probably a shite suggestion, but what about rear discs from a Previa?

just fix the drum brakes.
there is nothing wrong with having drums.
they have been around for over 100 years.
disk brakes are easy to work on and that is about it.
take them all the way apart, clean every thing up.
don't use grease. use oil, sticky stuff like for lubing chains.
make sure the adjusters are in right and loose.
make sure all the little factory plugs are replaced.

I don't want a pissing match over disk vs drum..
I am just saying that a drum brake works well if maintained.

some things that you don't want to do.. found alot of this redoing my wifes rear brakes.

make sure all springs are in correct orientation.
do not use large amounts of grease.
do not put grease where it is not supposed to be. look at the manual.

her's the adjuster on one side was backwards. they were both locked (very hard to turn) from the grease and dust in them.
one side had a spring in the wrong place.
the shoes were burned so bad that they just fell off the backing because the PO adjusted them to the point that they must have been about locked up. or drove with the e brake on for a long time.... the backing clips were bent and binding.
after I rebuilt them and put everything back the way it was supposed to be they work great.
some of the friction surfaces DO NOT get grease as they don't move much like the e brake levers.

drum brakes have or store alot of heat and dust, keep that in mind when rebuilding them if you don't have the manual to follow.

not to pick on you personally but I am or have been in this (argument) many times.
disk brakes are better on alot of levels. but drums work.
don't give me that salt belt stuff. I live there. that is where all the little factory plugs are pure gold. do put a bit of grease on them to help sealing.
with brakes grease, oil, are good in the right places and really bad in the wrong places.

drums have been, and still are on all kinds of cars, trucks.
I would not be able to even guess at how long they have been around 200 years??. if they didn't work, don't you think they would have changed them a LONG time ago.

I recently saw a drum brake that was a 100 years old stop a rotating mass of over 8000 pounds at 80 rpm in about 3/4 of a revolution. it was about 20 inches across about 4 inches wide. had a leather pad that went around it backed by steel. I was so impressed that I asked the owner (it was a big generator from home stake mine) he said, and I believe him that it was the original and had not been replaced.

I digress.. sorry.
but in my opinion it is not worth the money to go to disks.
drums are complicated compared to disk brakes. but set up right they work well.