How to Replace Parking Brake Shoes 2005-16 Toyota RAV4

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1AAuto. In this video I'm going to show you how to replace the parking brake shoes on these 2010 Toyota RAV4. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

I'm going to remove the wheel. I'm using a 21 millimeter socket and an air gun. If you don't have an air gun, you can remove it on the ground with a breaker bar before you raise the vehicle up. That wheel wasn't too difficult to get off. If you do have trouble getting it off, you can just put a lug nut on there and hit the back of the tire with a hammer. Generally, that gets them off.

Now I just want to compress this caliper a little bit just to make it easier to pull off. Just take a straight blade screwdriver. Get in here, just try to pry it out a little bit. It'll just make the pad slide off easier. Now I'm going to take these two bolts out. I'm going to use a 14 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Break these free. And then if the slide starts spinning, you can use a wrench on that slide. Before I take that one out, break the top one free. Now I'll just take these bolts out. Slide this out. Now you can grab the caliper. And you want to use some type of a caliper hook. We actually sell these at 1AAuto.com. And we'll just hook this onto the spring right here. That way it keeps the tension off the hose. You don't ever want to just let the caliper hang from the hose because it could damage the hose.

Next, I'm just going to remove these pads. Just grab the pads and slide them out. Just like that. Set them aside. Then I'm going to take a 17 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Loosen these two bolts up that hold this bracket on. They're pretty tight, so if you need to use a breaker bar to break them free. To make it easier, I'm just going to use an electric ratchet. All right, this rotor is stuck on there pretty good. There is these two little threaded holes. What you can do is find a bolt that's going to work with those threads. Well, depending on the bolt. I'm using a 12 millimeter socket and electric ratchet. I'm just going to tighten this down a little bit. Now I'm actually going to tap the rotor with a hammer. I just want to tap in these locations. Be careful not to hit the studs. That loosens up. Tighten that up a little bit more. And you could get two bolts, but I'm just going to use one. There we go. Nice and loose. You can slide it right off.

All right, just to show you what some of these springs look like. Now, you don't have to take the hub off to do this job. I just happen to have the hub off. But I wanted to show you what they look like. So, this spring is going to connect right here. There's the spring part. And then it's going to connect over here as well, it's for the bottom spring, right next to the adjuster. And then, these two retainer springs basically hold the shoes on to the backing plate. So, what we're going to need to do is push down on this section and then rotate it so it's slotted a certain way. And then these two springs up top. So this spring has a longer ear right here that actually goes through this bracket, which is interesting, that's different. It's not that common. And then here's the other spring that goes right there. So I am going to put the hub back on and then we'll show you how we take those off.

All right, so there's a couple of ways you can do this. You can take these clips off first and then the springs. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take these springs off first and then last I'll take those clips off. A lot of times it's easiest to use some needle nose locking pliers. Try to get in here onto the spring. Lock those on and then just try to muscle it this way. Try to get it over it. And slide it out like that. So that's one way you can do it. Pull that out.

Another way to take these springs out, you could use some hose pliers. What you do is you wrap it around the spring. And then with it close, technically it should not go flying, but it depends on the application. Sometimes it's somewhat difficult. You just twist it a little bit. And slide it up. Just watch your fingers. Make sure you wear safety glasses when you're doing this, because you don't want that spring to come flying at you. And then that just came out real easy. But there's a hole down there and you just bend the spring like that. And then slide it out of the hole. So that's good up top.

Down below, let me get this spring out down here. I'll just use the locking plier technique. Lock it on. Just slide it out. Just like that. They do make special tools for this, but a lot of times using the locking pliers actually work better. Just try to slide this side of this shoe just like that. Now we can spread these shoes apart a little bit and then take the adjuster out.

Now, to get these clips off, sometimes it's a little bit tricky. I'm going to take some of these style needle nose pliers. These are a little flatter so it makes it a little bit easier, or it could make it a little more difficult, but you're going to push on the spring. And there's a nail in there, they call it a nail. What you need that nail to do is pivot. So we need to push on this. Try to get that nail to pivot. Twist it like that. Again, it's recommended you use safety glasses. And that's one of the brackets that goes across. Set that aside. And try to pull the clip out of the nail. And there it is. There's the clip. And you can slide the shoe off just like that. And we'll do the same with this shoe.

And it helps with this hub machined the way it is so that you can get in here. It makes it a little bit easier. Push down on that. Try to twist that pin. There we go. And slide the shoe off. To take these old nails out, you can just slide them through the hole. This one you have to angle up because of the bracket for where the brakes attached to. The other side. Just angle it that way towards the front of the vehicle, and then you can get that one out as well.

Here's the old hardware. Here's the new hardware kit from 1AAuto.com. Comes with all the same pieces from the old kit. The new springs. There is a difference right to left. Comes with everything you see here plus the other side as well. So one kit can do both sides of the car. Comes with the adjuster. It's taken apart. Now these adjusters are directional, so you have to put these together, but also one goes on the passenger side and one goes on the driver's side. The brass looking one on this vehicle goes on the passenger side. Get yours at 1AAuto.com and you'll be ready to rock and roll.

I'm going to take the new pins. It's always a good idea to replace the hardware whenever you're replacing the shoes. Put the pins in. Because they can rust over time. I'll put the other pin in first. This one, just slide it at an angle, just like that. Generally, they just sit there. Okay. Now we can take this back shoe. This is going to be the more difficult one because we have this bracket right here. This goes to the parking brake cable, so this is going to slide in here. And you can take some brake lubricant and just put a little bit on there, lubricate this a little bit. And we're going to slide this. It's going to go over the pin like that.

All right, with that lined up, I am going to take this bracket, and there's a little hole right there on that side. So this is basically going to hold that bracket that goes to the parking brake cable, and that's going to hold that together with the shoe. I'll just let that sit right there. And with that there, I'm holding the pin or the nail on the back side. I'm going to take one of these springs, slide this spring in position just like that. Now you want to try to line this spring up the same direction of the nail. Now we're going to do the same thing, and how we took it off, just use some needle nose pliers. Got to push that down. When you push it down, carefully try to spin the nail. And this may take a couple of times. This isn't the easiest thing to do.

All right, and just twist it sideways a little bit. All right, I got it to latch a little bit. So now I'm going to just grab it. Try to twist it. There we go. So that takes a little bit of effort. Just be patient. And then what you can do is... Oh, that bracket fell. Pull that bracket out. You don't have to pull the bracket out, but then you can just take your pliers and just make sure that other bracket is, that pin has gone through there. And we'll put this bracket back this way, just like that. And then let's get the other side in. Now we're going to take shoe, and slide this in. Similar to the back one. This bracket's going to slide right there. Take this spring clip, and twist it, and there we go. That one was a little bit easier. Like I said, don't get frustrated with it. These are really pretty difficult to do. But you just practice and you'll be able to get it.

Then we want to get this bracket in between the two shoes. Just like that. Get that all lined up. We can start putting the other springs on. So these are the old springs. So what you want to do is keep in mind when you take these apart, just do one side at a time so you don't get all these springs mixed up. So you want to align those up with these springs. So the orange one works for the passenger side on this vehicle, and then this one, just line this up, match that one up. And that matches that. Now these springs are the same for both sides, so that's not as big of an issue.

So what we want to do is I want to get the orange one started first. So this is going to go through this hole here, and then you can use a a special break tool if you have one. They make these slide tools that go over here, and you can just slide it on. But I am just going to use those hose pliers for this. Just slide it back. And just be careful. Twist the hub a little bit. Give myself a little more area to work. Trying to get this part of the spring down into that bracket, which it's a little bit difficult with this. That's in there. Slip it over here. And I'm struggling a little bit with this. I'm just going to use the locking pliers, locking needle nose pliers. Slide that out. Almost. The bracket's sliding down. Just slide it up. And then push that on. Just like that. You can you use a pick to get this all adjusted properly?

It's looking pretty good. Now we can take this other spring since that orange spring is on there good. This part of the spring is going to slide into that hole right there. Then I'm going to use these hose pliers again. Try to get these to line up. Just like that. That works pretty good. And then now we can put the adjuster on the bottom and then the spring.

So, the old adjuster is right here, new adjuster is right here. We put this together. How you can figure out which side adjuster you need, you can take this end off and then just grab one part of the adjuster and twist it to the right and see if the adjuster part goes in or out. So this one it goes out. So we just compare that to this one. And when I go to basically tightening it, it actually loosens it. So it's the opposite of what you think.

So we're going to take some of this grease, put a little grease on the threads, not too much. And then a little grease on the end. The grease on the end is actually going to hold this piece in there a little bit, so that makes it a little bit easier to install. We'll just loosen this up. Well, we're tightening it as we loosen it because it's reversed. All right, so try to get it generally the location of how it was when you took it apart. Right about there. So this adjuster is going to go in here like this. Slide that in position there. Just like that. Now we can install the spring.

All right, so the spring is going to go this way. Now this part of the spring is going into that hole right there on the shoe, on the front shoe. All right, get that side in that on the front shoe. The back shoe, it's not going to go through the whole, it's going to go on this little slot over here on the backside of the shoe. So we'll just take the needle nose pliers and just try to move it to that back shoe. I got it almost there. I just got to push it down. There we go. All right, so that's in there right. So now the springs are in, hard part's over.

I'm just going to take a pocket screwdriver. Take these clips off. We can take them off both sides. I just want to clean up this caliper bracket. Be careful if you have to reuse those. And then take a wire brush to clean up this area right here. And then we'll do the same for the other side.

All right, so this is more of a preference, but you can put a little grease on this area right here. And then when you take the clip, put the anti-rattle clip back on. Now we're going to take some more grease and just clean up on here. If you had any dirt on there, you want to clean that off as well. Just grease that area up there, just like that. Do the same for the other side. What happens on these caliper brackets is they corrode underneath there and the rust actually pushes up on these rattle clips and that prevents the pads from sliding properly.

Then also with the slide pins, I'm going to take these slide pins out, take some brake parts cleaner, clean these off, and a rag, just wipe them down. And then same in the hole. You can spray a little brake parts cleaner in there, clean those out the best you can. Just like that. Dumps some of that out. Take a little brake caliper grease, grease up the pin. Then we'll do the same with the other side. Slide it in, make sure that little grommet is sealed properly.

I need to take this little cover off on the old rotor. This is actually the adjuster cover for the parking brakes. You can pull this off and then you can adjust the parking brakes, transfer it over to the new rotor. Just take a pocket screwdriver, get it back in position. That's good. Now we do have a new hub on this vehicle, so we wouldn't need to do this, but normally you would take a wire brush and just clean the hub surface, any of the rust right here and right here. Just try to get in there, clean it out the best you can.

So, to adjust these parking brakes, what you want to do is take the rotor, slide this on, and just see if you can feel any resistance. And this feels pretty loose, so we want to tighten these up a little bit. You don't want them too tight, just tight enough so that you feel some. So I'm just going to use a screwdriver. We can adjust these up like this. So, as I twist this in a rotating clockwise motion, it's actually pushing out on the shoes, which is what I want. That should be good.

All right, see that's almost too tight right there. So let's loosen it up a little bit. So now we'll just go the other direction. Just like that. It's a good idea to do it maybe three rotations and then three rotations. And that feels pretty good right there. So I think we're good right there. And then you can always pull that plug out and then adjust it either direction if you want to adjust it a little bit finer. And there you go.

All right. First thing I want to do, put the rotor on backwards. So I'm going to spray the rotor. There is a protective coating on the rotor, so just wipe it off. That's just to prevent it from rusting. And slide it the other way. And then spray some more brake parts cleaner. And wipe it off. Now we'll take the bracket, slide that back in position, right there. Take the caliper bracket bolts. Get those started. Now I'm just going to take my 17 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Tighten these up.

Now I'm going to use that same 17 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to tighten these bolts to 65 foot pounds. Now, take these brake pads. It doesn't really matter which way they go. Slide those in position there. And then same on the inside. That's good. Now we can grab the brake caliper, slide the hanger off of the caliper. Then I'm going to use a piston compressor, caliper piston compressor. There's obviously different types of caliper piston compressors. We actually sell this one at 1AAuto.com. I like the way this one works. Just get this lined up in there. And then it ratchets. Ratchets one way to tighten it, and another way to loosen it.

Now you want to go nice and slow when you're doing this as you're compressing this piston into the caliper fluids, going through the lines up to the master cylinder and into the reservoir. So it's a good idea to check the reservoir after you're done and adjust accordingly. All right, we're back on loosen. Loosen this up. Take the caliper, slide it over the pads. Take these caliper bolts, slide those in there, one there and one there.

Then I'm going to use a 14 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque these bolts to 20 foot pounds. And if you have to, you can use a wrench to hold the slide from spinning. If the slide spins, then just use a 14 millimeter wrench. That's good. Same with the bottom one. All right, for the bottom one, I just need an extension because the hose was in the way. Just like that.

Now I'm going to reinstall the tire. Take the lug nuts, install the lug nuts. Now I'm going to use a 21 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm torquing these lug nuts to 76 foot pounds, and I'm going to do it in a star pattern. That way that the wheel gets tightened down evenly. I'll just go around again, just make sure. Good to go.

Now we want to make sure we pump up the brake pedal because there is going to be a little bit of an air gap between the brake pads and the rotor. And this is going to eliminate that air gap. Just pump it up. It's going to squish the piston into the brake pads. Looks good. Make sure it feels good. And last, under the hood, you want to make sure you check your brake fluid level. Make sure it's not too high. If it's above the max, you want to empty some out. Use some kind of fluid transfer pump. And then, if it's too low, you want to add the appropriate brake fluid.

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