DIY Drum Brakes Adjustment

It has being almost 4 years since I am driving my Toyota Vios and I never had my rear drum brakes serviced before. I noticed my Toyota Vios emergency brake also known as hand brake required to pull more than it used to be. For those who are not aware, when we stepping brake pedal in the car, the brake system will engage all the 4 brakes on the wheels while pulling the hand brake will only engage the rear wheel brakes. Since my Toyota Vios hand brake required to engage more than usual, this is the sign that the some of the drum brake pads has being exhausted and some adjustment is required. I had my Toyota Vios drum brake adjustment when my brake calipers are painted at the same time too.

Step by step how to DIY drum brakes adjustment

1. Nothing much we can do until we jack up the car and removed the rear wheels.
2. After we removed the wheels, we will see the drum brake cover as below:

Here is the tricky part, In order to remove the drum brake cover, we must release the hand brake first so that the brake pad in the drum brake is disengaged and not holding the drum brake cover. Then randomly knock the drum brake cover with hammer to loose it up.

When the drum brake cover is loosed up from the drum brake, we can proceed to remove the drum brake cover by twisting the cover left and right while taking it off:

Once the drum brake cover is taken off, now can we see the drum brake system:

My drum brake pad is still left a lot even after I have used my Toyota Vios for 4 years. No replacement is required and only minor adjustment is needed to tighten up the brake system.

Here we need a ‘minus’ screwdriver to perform the adjustment on the drum brake.

Apply the ‘minus’ screwdriver on the ‘star wheel’ as what shown in below diagram:

Make the adjustment according the the clock wise to tighten up the brake system that linked to the hand brake. Only several turnings are required, my Toyota Vios drum brake system is tighten up with less than 10 turn steps:

Once we have have done the adjustment on the drum brake, repeat the same steps for the other side of drum brake too. Clean the brake pad dust and debris around the brake system too.

Lastly, assembly back the drum brake cover on it and test out the hand brake sensitivity. If the handbrake sensitivity is not up your expectation, adjustment shall be continue until it we are satisfied.

Then put back the wheels to the car and we are done! Now my handbrake works just like how like 1st year I get my Toyota Vios 🙂 Drop us a comment if you have query and don’t forget to give us a “Like”!