Rear brake rotor - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

dparsley63 · 04-20-2011, 01:51 PM

Is there a secret for removing the rear brake rotors? I've removed the calipers, brackets, and the rotor is loose to a point, then something at the top center seems to keep it located on the hub. I suspect there is damaged parking brake hardware that has released the parking brake shoes and they are binding, but wanted to know it anyone has a secret to getting the rotors off with minimal hassel?

D.

rmike1991 · 04-20-2011, 03:26 PM

I'm a little confused. Are you trying to remove the rotor or the drum? If the car has rotors it would not have any brake shoes. Maybe you can post a picture?
What kind of car do you have and what year is it?

inov8 · 04-20-2011, 04:16 PM

The 2005-up Avalon rear brakes have a seperate drum parking brake and the drum is intergral with the rotor. Does the binding seem to be near the center (spindle), near one or more of the studs, at at the outer surface of the drum? Does the rotor rotate freely by hand?

It is common for rotors to rust to the hub, and sometimes the parking brake adjuster has to be backed off for the drum to clear the shoes. A flat-blade screwdriver will work in a pinch to rotate the star wheel.

Does your rotor have the 2 threaded holes used to assist removal?

Mike Murrell · 04-20-2011, 05:48 PM

Have not looked at Avalon rear brake architecture yet - so I don't know about what follows.

Worth a look:

You Tube

dparsley63 · 04-20-2011, 08:07 PM

Thanks for the assistance all. I figured it out after getting a closer look. The parking brake shoe retention hardware had broken on the forward shoe on the driver side. This caused a bunch of interference when trying to remove the rotor/drum. After a bunch of rotating/pulling and a bunch of bad words, it finally came loose. Overall it wasn't that bad of a job. I'm well aware of the rotor removal holes in the face of the rotor, though they were not needed at all on the rears, but the fronts needed to be used as designed.

Now I'm waiting for replacement american made rotors to arrive from Portland OR.

D.

grandpapa · 04-21-2011, 11:07 AM

please share your DIY tip once you have the rotor, pic will be nice

dparsley63 · 04-21-2011, 12:51 PM

I originally only planned on doing the rear brakes as this 2006 Avalon has about 90K or so. I was told the dealer replaced the front approx 20K ago so I assumed the fronts would still be good. But once I removed the front wheels to swap to summer tires and to inspect the brake pad wear, I discovered the pads were down to metal-metal contact on the DS, and the PS pads were wearing in an exagerated angle. The original rotors could not be cleaned up so I now have new US made rotors on order. I've had horrible experiences with the cheap Chinese sourced rotors and will never again install them on anything i own.

The rears are done now and sorry that I didn't take any pictures during the project. After I got the DS rear off, it was obvious that the parking brake retention clip had failed so I ended up getting new hardware to fix that problem in the future. It was a fairly straight-forward job that didn't require any special purpose tools to accomplish.

Dennis