Here's an update on my longstanding parking brake issue.
So I went to a friend's as he, unlike me. is a real mechanic. He also owned a 2005 base model.
The new backing plates came with Toyota part number stickers and were identical to the rusted OEM ones.
Pulling the backing plate & hub was ordinary; take all the brake parts off and remove the parking brake cable.
But then it got ...interesting....
I had not purchased new hubs so we needed to get them out of the old backing plates.
The Fine Manual shows the hub easily separating from the backing plate.
Yea, SURE!
Here's how we got them apart:
See:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/a5MgZZAyiZX7RKpm6
- Bend rusted sheet metal out of the way.
- With saw, score a tangent to the hub into the backing plate.
- Follow the score with a Dremel to partially cut though the 0.25" plate
- Flex the top back and forth until it breaks off.
- With a gap in the plate, minor chiseling extracted the hubs. We wire-brushed them clean.
- Reinstallation was trivial.
But the brakes shoes were a different issue. AutoZone sold us a set that had the levers riveted to the shoe; ours were removable. With the new shoes in place, and the star-wheel retracted, there was no way the rotor would fit; the shoes were too far apart. The notch in the new levers protrued too far by almost .2 inches.
We removed the new levers and used the old ones. That almost solved the issue so we removed a smidgen from the starwheel socket and we were there. The wheels spun freely.