Thanks for the reply.
Once the tone ring, seal,bearing and spacer are replaced, do I have to drive out the old bearing race from the housing, or can I use the old one ?
My bearing didn't survive the removal, I also had a shop do it, as I don't have a press remotely large enough to press off/on the tone ring. I have heard of many cases where folks have removed a rear axle shaft and re-used the bearing and seal without issue. Keep in mind also, that I far too often tow overweight for the Titan, and it has been an offroad mountain workhorse since brand new, the bearing issue I had MIGHT just be caused by the over-stress I put on the rear end. You won't really know until you get it apart, unfortunately.
Yes piss poor design.....
whatever bonding agent is used to adhere the shoes to the backing plates breaks down over time, and with heat, causing the pads to come free (delaminate) off the metal, then they start spinning with the rotor, basically turning the whole drum into a blender for all the parts inside. It rips the springs loose, the plates loose, the toggle and the spacer bolts loose, and then grinds on the tone ring and rips the end off the ABS sensor. Correct, in a nutshell, OEM parking brake shoes are very low quality.
How hard is the parking brake(s) to remove and reinstall? Seems like it's best to just remove the thing and reinstall if you need to pass some inspection. Do you have to take the truck apart to get to the things?
When I did mine, it took me 2 hours to do the first side, 10 mins to do the second, as I was learning how as I went. You have to remove the rear tire, caliper (Just umount it and hang it out of the way, leave the brake lines attached so you don't need to bleed them after), and rotor. Taking them out is a cinch, but getting the duralast replacement springs (Much stouter than the OEM) back in was the real trick. What I learned to do, was use a long, thin phillips screwdriver (One you don't mind bending) hook the spring hook on the shaft of the screwdriver, poke the tip in the hole where it goes, and pry towards the hole, this causes the end of the spring to slide down the phillips and snap into the hole where it goes. I could not for the life of me figure out another way to do this. In my case, the most labor intensive part was hammering all the bits and pieces out from between the axle flange and the dust guard, as they were all wedged in at the bottom. If you never use the parking brake, you are much better off just removing them, but you can replace both sides with better hardware and pads for less than $50.
Not the spacers, the toggle BOX. It's a square, stamped piece with a hinged hook inside, the part that actually attatches to the cable end and 'toggles' the brakes on when you push the pedal, acting as a lever to push the shoes out against the inside of the drum on the rotor. When you release it, the springs reset the toggle box and the shoes retract.
This is for an altima, but it's VERY sililar to the one on the titan. Unfortunately I do not have a pic of the actual piece.... no wait, google comes through!
Nissan Titan 2004-05-06-07-08-09-10-11-2012 Parking Brake Toggle Lever | eBay
and that's badass, mine was $30. As seen in the OP pics, his is hammered. The toggle is a nissan specific part that you won't get in a parts-store kit. You have to source one, or if you're lucky, re-use the OEM. It's a heavy-duty stamped steel piece, hard to **** up making that.
