I live in Florida, so rarely use the hand brake. Today I was visiting a friend who has a very steep driveway and I pulled up the brake after putting the car in Park.

Dumbazz....when I left I forgot to release the brake. I drove about 4 miles with it on, but no bell ringing, no warnings, and certainly nothing happened in the car's handling that alerted me to the fact I had the brake on.

When I realized it (having stopped and parked), I didn't smell any "brake" odor and there appears to have been no ill effects from my stupidity.

My question...do you think I may not have had it fully engaged?

 

If they were properly adjusted... you would have known they were engaged.

 

Well, how do I know if it's "properly adjusted?"

In other cars I've owned, if you try to drive while the hand brake is "on" you get a dinging bell sound alerting you to the fact.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna test the brake out by fully engaging it (making sure I pull it all the way up) and then stepping on the gas.

 

The EBs are one of the weak components on our cars. Most of them do
not engage securely nor do they auto adjust. There is a Tech-tip posted
by ET that might help with your dilemma.

 

Vetteran...thank you very much for the Tech Tip link regarding the hand brake.

While I'm not going to take my wheels off and all that, I will check out the other suggestions. At least I know now that it's not an unusual occurance. Thanks again.

 

put the brake on all the way. then put it in gear. see if it moves
easily. if it takes some gas to get it going you should be ok. unless its a failry steep hill. these are very easy to burn up while driving

 

Thanks rgtkst. I'm gonna try it out tomorrow.

I'm assuming I didn't "burn up" anything today though (didn't smell any burn up odor), so it's likely I either didn't have it properly engaged, or that my hand brake is already screwy. Thanks.

As I said...I don't use it all that much, but it'd be nice to know if it works!

 

I had my rear rotor/drums off to adjust them. People keep posting that you can adjust the parking brake by applying the parking brake while you are backing up. I don't think so. I couldn't see anything that looked like an automatic adjuster that would move the adjuster regardless of how much flexing or moving the shoe would do when you applied the brakes, going backwards or frontwards. There simply isn't the mechanism there to do it!!

I think that once you have the rear parking brake shoes adjusted properly, any wear is compensated for by one of the ratchet mechanisms in the handle assembly. My 2 cents.

RonJ ...

 

i have never heard this for disc rears before. this was old school for drum brakes. pushing the brakes on disc operates the calipers not the little inner hand op. drum for parking brake

 

with mine engaged I can;t go anywhere, she won't move@ So I would guess your's were not fully engaged and no damage was done.

 

Seeing how your car is an automatic, when driving away with the brake on (also it couldn`t of been fully engaged) it`s harder to notice the towing effect. I have a six speed and have driven off with the brake engaged but soon as I stepped on the clutch you can feel the drag.

 

Not so fast - the e-brake on the C5 is an auxillary drum-shoe assembly that fits into a recess into the back of the rear rotor and functions just like the old drum brakes. You even adjust them the same.



Lojo, I doubt your brake was fully engaged or is way out of adjustment, which is quite common on the C5. I adjusted mine when I swapped rotors when I first bought the car brand new and it was already out of adjustment. As much as you don't want to, you may need to pull the wheels and rotors to get the e-brake working to it's full capacity again.

 

I never use my hand brake in mine either as Houston is pretty flat but I've done this to my Nissan and just go about speeding in the freeway not realizing the hand brake is on! I'd hope that my vette would advice me somehow before I drive miles and miles w/the brake on. Good tips learned here.

 

you are saying they are NOT self adjusters right??? the brake pedal doesnt operate the small drum brakes inside there. the hand lever does, doesn't it? so not operated by the brake pedal. doing the old style back up and apply brakes could not self adjust these. correct??
geezzz i just read the post from earlier. i thought he was saying these are self adjusting my bad, he was saying they are adjustable by the star mech. i feel allittle stupid now.

 

the idiot light should of been on in your instrument cluster

 

Truthfully, I really didn't see if the 'idiot light' (BRAKE!) was on.

In any case, I thank everyone here for their advice. Seems like this was something we could all learn from from the techies here.

As a follow up....I've decided I simply didn't have the brake fully engaged. Tried it out yesterday by pulling it all the way up (and yes, the idiot light came on), and then attempting to move the car in both Reverse and Drive. It wouldn't budge.

Sooo...I'm assuming my EB is working fine and I did no damage. I'm still amazed, though, that there isn't a warning bell 'dinging' for this. It rings if your hatch is ajar or for other no-no's.

 

The link, picture and instructions are great.

Here are some extra tidbits, to help out others:

1. Obviously you cannot pull the rear rotors off until you put the emergency brake down - be sure to chock the front wheels. I remember struggling with rear rotors a looong time ago back in college and duhh, I had the emergency brake engaged.

2. For me personally, I was unable to turn the star adjuster UNTIL I pulled up on the emergency brake - at which point I put a small amount of penetrating spray. Once I turned it (visually eye a spot such that you can see the shoe expanding a gap from the shoe and hub distance) I then put the emergency brake down and test fitted the rotor

3. You may need a mallet to knock the shoe to be more centered, I thought I had reached my max, but really the shoe was a smidgen off center.

4. Like it was said before, don't worry about that large axle nut, not at all related

5. I just test fitted until the rotor was snug to put on, I couldn't hear any audible clicks and when turning the adjuster, I only felt slight clicks, so I have no clue how the original guy counted them... I needed to use a large regular plier that had teeth on it

6. Look at the marking of the piston on the back of the brake pad to figure out which goes to the inside and which is on the outside - basically the one with the wear tab goes to the inside, nearest the centerline of the car. I sprayed Disc Brake Quiet on my pads after cleaning 'em up

7. Don't forget red loctite on all bolts (bracket and caliper)

8. Take the time to put some antiseize on your lugs

Hope that helps someone!

 

gee. where did the name for the idiot light come from anyway



j/k to the original poster, although it should have been on. i hate the ding ding ding that happens when u dont release it when it wants to be released. i dont like the car telling me what to do. i learned along time agon to release the parking brake. didnt even have to have an idiot light, much less a warning buzzer or a hand to come out of the dash and slap me in the face.

 

Well, yeah...but when you've done some dumb-azzed thing like leaving the hand brake on, you might appreciate the car telling you you're a dolt. As I said...all's well that end's well....my hand brake works fine and I'll try not to be stooopid in the future.