66RAY

I have been working on changing over the rusty and non-functioning emergency brake hardware on my 76 and have run into some snags. I have an article from corvette magazine with some photos which are helpful, but not specific on some issues.

I have the left side (driver side) done, but I can't figure out how the parking brake lever and the strut work together to engage the brake. I have not connected the cable to the lever, but when I engage it manually there is no resistance. It appears the lever and strut need to be connected to or in contact with the shoes to expand them when the lever is pulled, but I'm not sure how that is done.

On the right side (passenger side) I put the lever though the backing plate (dust shield) with the "R" on the lever facing up as stated in the article, but that puts the hook of the lever facing down. Is that correct? If that is correct I couldn't see how to get the brake cable onto the lever. I tried it and there is no way to get the cable under the the hook of the lever which is facing down to engage it and the ball at the end of the cable will not slide past it.

Also, the article says to put the lever through the backing plate and then coonect the strut to the lever with the pin, washer and "E" clip. I presumed the strut goes under the lever which is how I assembled it. Is that correct?

This is a tedious job, but I think the biggest problem has been not understanding how the system operates. I finally figured out where all the springs go and how to them them assembled, but I still don't really understand what is supposed to happen when the emergency brake lever inside the car is pulled and how the brake shoes are made to expand. I understand that the ball at the end of the brake cable grabs the lever pulling it to the front, but what exactly is that supposed to do inside the system. I thought if someone could explain the system in some detail I can figure out the assembly process.

Hope someone out there can help. Thanks.

big_G

The hook in the lever points up. Looks like you have the assembly upside down. The parking brake shoes have notches in them for the levers to catch on and open up the pads.

gearheaddroppings

Basically the lever engages the shoes which expand to place friction on the inner part of the rotor. There is a small rotary adjustment which goes in place to allow for manual expansion through the rotor and to "fine tune" the e-brake.

Here is a picture courtesy of Van Steel:

The springs that provide the e-brake return are located on the main cross-cable that goes between both trailing arms. This cable has a couple of heavy duty springs which fit into place on each trailing arm. There is a small plastic guide which needs to be replaced on each trailing arm which looks like a horseshoe.

Things to make sure of include making sure that your backing plates are not bent or "deformed" to allow the shoe pivots to fit in correctly (many times they are very rusted).

Putting those replacement springs in can be a real nightmare as there is little clearance between the hub and backing plate. One little trick that worked for me was to compress the springs and then tie them with fishing line. I then worked them into place over the lock tabs, and ran a long thin barbecue lighter over them which "popped" the fishing line and made them expand into place.

Hope this helps somewhat.

66RAY

Thanks for the quick response. I'll give it a try today. I have some disassembly to do.