One caller last week had squeaking brakes and asked Tom and Ray for advice. The caller said he had heard from a friend that if he backed up rapidly, and then slammed on the brakes, it might help. Tom and Ray said they’d never heard of this idea. But I’ve heard of this procedure, at least for t…

Mostly no. Most disc/drum combos use the parking brake to adjust the shoes to the drum. In the all drum world, backing up and applying the brakes did the adjustment as the parking brake would not work on the front drums.

The self adjuster in the rear drums you are speaking of did not adjust very well at all.

Even when you backed up to adjust them, you wouldn’t slam on the brakes but instead, pump them. Each pump moved the little wheel a click or two and you had to release the brake to allow it to reset for another click. This was mostly just to adjust the drums as you wore them down, not for the initia…

David, if the starwheel is located just under the wheel cylinder, the auto adjustment is done by the parking brake. If the star wheel is located at the base of the brakes and acts as the hinge point for the shoes, then the adjustment is done by backing up. Japanese cars all adjust by the parking b…

On most cars ive had you pull the e brake about 4 clicks then slowly reverse and the mechanism will tighten up in the rear drums to allow proper braking. I drive honda toyota and pontiac models mostly hope this helps

Agree with @meaneyedcatz “Self adjusters” rarely work very well, especially on vehicles that tend to have long pedal travel. You can adjust them manually to help bring the travel shorter. I had a 3/4 ton Suburban that required this. Every oil change I’d adjust them a few clicks. Backing up and hamm…

Self-servo brakes that need adjusting will shift toward the front significantly on a hard stop in reverse and possibly unstick the self adjusting mechanism but if the mechanism is operating freely just pumping the pedal firmly several times should crank the adjusters out.

On my 2002 Sienna the parking brake definitely adjusted the rear brakes. I posted some years ago that the Toyota dealer near McAllen, recommended parking brake adjustment when it was not needed. The service writer admitted they often do this when a car has a lot of miles because most folks do not us…

Aloha, I just want to say that I had a rear disc brake freeze on me in the middle of nowhere. The rear brakes were just changed out and rotors turned. I called my mechanic and he thought the backing up maneuver might make it worse. He told me that the pistons were all working smoothly upon assembly.…

Fixing drum brakes by backing up

Maintenance/Repairs

DavidKelly July 8, 2011, 8:16pm 5

I have never seen the parking brake activate the self-adjusting ratchet on drum brakes. A light to moderate normal brake application in reverse is all it takes to self-adjust. When adjustment occurs one will hear a loud click or two. Is this click that most come to the shop to complain about not knowing that it is both normal and good.

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Fixing drum brakes by backing up

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