Hello,

My emergency brake doesn't hold the car. It does moves the lever on the caliper but not enough to hold the car. It says it is self adjusting but it only moves the cable a little bit. Is the cable just to stretched out? How do I know if it is the cable from the handle or the cable under the car that is stretched? Or do I replace it all for good measure?

Also, when I release the cable the little arm on the caliper on the passenger side doesn't release. I have to tap it or push it to get it to move back to the resting position. The return spring is there and it's very strong. What would cause this to hang up?

 

Are you depressing the brake pedal to release the emergency brake ?

You need to check the mechanism all the way from inside the car out to the calipers/assemblies and see if the adjustment mechanism is not working/needs lubed, etc.

Cables do stretch depending on how often they are used.

 

I have watched the e brake work while under the car. It does pull the cables but it barely moves them. I have the seat out now for something else and I took the lever cover off and watched it work. The lever moves pretty far before the cable begins to move. Seems like it is stretched out. This is a 6spd with 113K I didnt know the prior owner so I dont know the history. I have no problem changing the cables out. I just dont want to if the self adjuster should be making up for the stretch. I have been through the manual with the e brake assembly and its not too helpful if at all. I couldnt find any videos on it either.

AND not sure what to do with the sticking caliper lever.

 

Could be the cable on that side is partially seized and not allowing the caliper lever to move fully(?)

 

I had to futz with the parking brake this past summer and it was stumping me for a while. My issue was that the parking brake wouldn’t release. The shop I was “forced” to use (long story, not relevant in this discussion) for a different repair on my ‘89 simply chose to disconnect the cables at the levers and I was fine with that. I was fine with that because I was already there for something else emergency-like that I was completely unprepared for. Point being is that the shop didn’t find it a simple fix and left it up to me. That’s fine because I’m plenty capable of DIY-ing nearly everything on my cars

So when I got my hands dirty on this, I was baffled what the heck the problem was. The cable routing is not complicated once you identify what goes where. There’s an equalizer cable that splits the operation into two cables from the main cable at the operating lever inside the car. There’s also a thin flat spring under the car that takes up slack. That’s it. Very simple and clean design in terms of cable connections and design

If you have your cables disconnected at the caliper levers, you can test them for smooth operation very easily. You should be able to push/pull them by hand quite easily. These cables are also very beefy and therefore I’d be surprised if they stretched.

My issue turned out to be sticky operation of the main lever inside the car. This lever assembly is an impressive piece of mechanical operation in how it ratchets and self adjusts. It’s quite ingenious how it pulls the cable to a stop and then can freely move back into resting position. It’s hard to describe how it actually works here and I can’t recall the actual assembly of parts. Doesn’t necessarily matter because all I did was clean it with brake parts cleaner to free the sticky dried grease and restore the operation of all the moving pieces with some new grease. I like Wurth HHS because it sprays bubbly liquid and dries to a sticky grease. The grease has extreme pressure (EP) properties, which is good for long term use. So it’ll penetrate

Therefore I would suggest you remove the door threshold/sill covering and then remove the lever assembly from the car so you can get an up close look at it and clean it. You may be surprised how gummed-up it is and that’s why you’re not getting enough “throw” on the cable operation. My situation was sort of reversed from yours, such that I couldn’t get the brakes to release on account of the adjuster sticking and making it seem like the main cable was too short. Obviously that cable could stretch but it certainly won’t shrink!. So sought the problem in the hand lever assembly after I determined the cables and calipers were fine

I can’t help with the caliper behavior as I haven’t worked on those yet. I’ve only had the car since April 2020 and it’s my first Vette. So I’m still learning a bunch about it

Like is always said here, the factory service manual is a super good resource. I can snap some pictures of the pages later if that helps. I recall the section on the parking brake lever assembly was very short. I have glanced at the brake pages (I plan to re-seal all of them with new piston dust boots and pressure seals) and I recall looking at the rear brake caliper images and thinking, ugh, I’ll look at that in detail when I have more time. Basically, that little rear caliper has a lot of pieces to it. The caliper exploded diagram made me wish for a moment I had the ‘87-older style drum brake inside the rotor hub, which works good on my old Porsche 911s and other cars I’ve had. Well, sort of. The drum style has many more parts and is prone to failure due to age/rust. Especially here in the Midwest.

 

Do you have this ?

 

Yes I have this and I have read it several times. I am thinking I need to adjust free travel.

First I will disconnect the lines from the caliper and see if the move freely as advised above.