Emergency Brake
Team Owner
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 40,380
Likes: 789
From: Redondo Beach, California
Maybe the first thing is to jack up the car and look underneath near the front of the differential. There's a cable from each wheel that joins here and they also join the cable from the emergency brake handle. The cables form a "Y." In the center of the Y, where the cables all meet, there are adjustment screws to tighten the cables to the rear wheels. Tighten the cables so that the emergency brake handle has a good stiffness at about three clicks. The cable should be tight enough so that you can't pull the handle all of the way up.
Next, if you need to, jack up the car and take off the rear wheels. If your rotors are riveted on, turn the rotor until you line up a hole in the rotor to be at the lowest point to the ground. Inside the hole is a star wheel. Hold your hand down with a screwdriver pointing up in the air and then insert the screwdriver in the hole to engage one of the star wheel projections. Move your hand up in the air to rotate the star wheel prongs down. This should adjust your barking brake shoes and bring them into adjustment. (If you can remove the rotor, you can see the hole that was in the rotor is now in the axle spindle flange. The parking brake mechanism is underneath this flange.)
These are probably the two most obvious things to do. Looks like you live in Maine and your car is 34 years old. If it's been driven in salt, the works of your parking brake system have probably rusted away. This means you'll have to replace the parking brake mechanism. Replacing the parking brake mechanism, in the car, is not easy if you've never done it before. It's probably not easy if you've done it before! The parking brake mechanism is easy to replace if you dissassemble the wheel hub/bearing assembly and press out the axle spindle.
Next, if you need to, jack up the car and take off the rear wheels. If your rotors are riveted on, turn the rotor until you line up a hole in the rotor to be at the lowest point to the ground. Inside the hole is a star wheel. Hold your hand down with a screwdriver pointing up in the air and then insert the screwdriver in the hole to engage one of the star wheel projections. Move your hand up in the air to rotate the star wheel prongs down. This should adjust your barking brake shoes and bring them into adjustment. (If you can remove the rotor, you can see the hole that was in the rotor is now in the axle spindle flange. The parking brake mechanism is underneath this flange.)
These are probably the two most obvious things to do. Looks like you live in Maine and your car is 34 years old. If it's been driven in salt, the works of your parking brake system have probably rusted away. This means you'll have to replace the parking brake mechanism. Replacing the parking brake mechanism, in the car, is not easy if you've never done it before. It's probably not easy if you've done it before! The parking brake mechanism is easy to replace if you dissassemble the wheel hub/bearing assembly and press out the axle spindle.
