Solved for now but worth sharing: rear brake noise

[Buurin]

For the past couple months I have been hearing groaning noises from Little Pig's rear brake when I'm about to come to a stop. Not when driving, does happen when pulling on handbrake without touching brake pedal, noise corresponds to wheel speed, so I'm pretty sure.

Today I jacked Little Pig's tail up and took the rear wheels off for a look. Both brakes seems to drag without handbrake set but that's a question for another day. I pulled the drums off, checked the drum and shoes and found both within spec, then cleaned the brakes well.

With the drums off I also pulled on the axle hubs on both sides. Nice and tight. No play.

I then retracted the automatic adjuster all the way on both sides. Drum back on and no more drag. Seems good.

Time for a road test.

Knowing I just did a brake job, I went slow. At the first stop sign my brake pedal just sunk to the floor and now I have much less brakes! At least I can still downshift and I am not going fast. Am I glad I decided to do a road test first? F yeah!

So I pulled back in my garage, jacked up piggy's tail again and read the FSM. OK. I have to work the handbrake until I hear no more clicks from the adjusters. Did that. Did I heard clicks only from one side? Strange. Set the handbrake. Let me spin the wheels. LH side wheel is locked but I can spin RH side all I want! WTF? Off went the wheel and drum again and indeed - the adjuster is stuck fully retracted! Fixed that, put wheel back on and worked the handbrake again. Phew. at least it feels much better now, But the brakes drag again. Nah I'll ask about that here later.

Let's do another road test. Noise had not returned! I just saved myself 100% of whatever $ this job would cost me. Should get myself some ice cream now.

[PhatRoyale]

I'm guessing you're a vanilla kind of guy since you drive a beige Corolla?

[Buurin]

Originally Posted by PhatRoyale

I'm guessing you're a vanilla kind of guy since you drive a beige Corolla?

Although I have a tub of French Vanilla Parlour in my fridge (and it tastes good), I'm actually a chocolate guy.

[azncapcom]

I've had a similiar issue with the rears before. I pretty much just cleaned the brakes and drum with brake cleaner, and it seemed to help. After a couple times the sound just went away.

Now front right side is making a similiar noise. i believe the rotors are warped, because my steering wheel vibrates when braking now.

[christiancarpenter]

i had a squeak coming out of the rear drum(s) the other day so i popped them off and they needed to be adjusted out a little. well the last couple days it came back and turned into a rear "howling" at low speed stops and a distinct scraping sound that increased with vehicle speed. popped them back off today to reinspect. one of the retaining pins had come off on the drivers side and ejected. i still had the spring and 2 round pin clip deals floating around on the bottom. had a pin from another car laying around. put it back together and voila, sound gone. just thought i'd share this in case anyone happens to get the big howl at some point. check your hardware.

[KeMBro2012]

There are 6 contact points on the rear bakes, where the shoes rub against the backing they are mounted to.

Use a flathead screwdriver to gently pry the shoes away from this backing and apply grease to each of these points using a q-tip.

You can see the points quite easily, they're raised little dimples, one at the top, one at the bottom, and one in the middle, under both shoes.

As for what type of grease to use, I'm not sure if it matters, but I did this 2 weeks ago with "Super Lube", a PTFE (teflon) grease found at Harbor Freight and this completely solved my squeal. Others have reported this only fixing it for a couple of days, maybe a week, when using black moly, lithium, or red bearing grease, so I would avoid those.

Regarding azncapcom's issue, yes that does sound like a warped rotor. It could also be a **VERY** bad ball joint, so make sure you check those out FIRST and IMMEDIATELY. Don't bother with that rotor until you've verified that both ball joints on that side are solid, with no play. If one is bad, replace both, the other isn't far behind. Same for rotors.

[Schubeedoobee]

use a high temp grease for those lube points.

[KeMBro2012]

Originally Posted by Schubeedoobee

use a high temp grease for those lube points.

Timely.

Just this morning, my squeal came back.

[toyotin]

properly adjusted rear drum brakes are supposed to have a slight drag.By backing off the adjusters u unadjusted your brakes, thats why the pedal is traveling so far because the rear brakes have further to travel now, the slight drag you had when you started is the proper adjustment for drum brakes.