Have an old '07 Toyota Yaris that had a parking brake that wasn't working well at all and I was told by a Toyota dealer that it needed a rear brake job.

I decided to try and save some money, and with the help of my father in law, attempted today to change out the shoes on the rear drums today. We also changed the front pads, and had no problem with the fronts.

At some point in the process on the rears we had finally gotten one wheel finished and when we tested the parking brake before putting the tire back on, it had great resistance on the lever and kept the wheel from spinning at all.

Went to do the other side on the rear and upon completion, we forgot to test the parking brake again before putting the tire on.

Took out for test drive and immediately realized the parking brake doesn't work at all. No resistance when I pull the lever on the car, and if I pull it all the way back, it makes a "popping sound" at the very end.

Any idea? It's late and my FIL was tired and hurting and so I called it a day. He said it would be fine to drive and we could look at it again in a couple weeks when he is back in town.

It seems to brake fine, but is it a danger to drive it in this state? I don't know enough about drum brakes to know if this means that my front brakes are currently all that's stopping the vehicle.

Ypu probably just missed the cable on that side. Send it. You're safe for normal braking.

Gauranteed the cable didn't get back into a retention hole somewhere. Easy fix.

Hoping so! But we never unhooked the parking brake cable from the metal piece on the brake shoe. Instead we pulled out the clip that attached the metal piece from the old brake shoe with the cable still attached and then clipped it back on to the new brake shoe

The thought of having to work on drum brakes again is making me break out into a cold sweat.

Did You check the cable at the pedal?

I mean...it's a simple system. I'd start at the pedal and follow the cable back.

The parking brake does not move the shoes much. You need to have the brakes adjusted snug for maximum effect. You can try to see if the auto adjust will pull them up by heavy breaking in reverse or pull the adjust plug and use the tool to make sure they are correct

First thing I would try is back down the street a ways hitting the brake over and over. That should adjust the tension on the rear brakes. If that doesn't fix it, check to see whether the cable is detached.

is the shoe adjusted out correctly?

I hope to look at it with him this weekend or next. I think we may not have adjusted the shoes correctly and they are not close enough to the drum, although that wouldn't explain it working after we did one wheel and then not working after we finished the 2nd?

It's a cable system. Assuming no issues with the cables, it should still grab on the side that worked initially.

That said, if you tested that wheel by hand with the car on jacks, then it could be the tension is not enough to support the weight of the car on the ground.

Yes, that's how we tested it. Interesting...I didn't know that but makes complete sense.

I may know from my own recent experiences!