Mine used to almost stop the car parked on a 1% grade, now it is completely useless. How do I adjust it?

 

Try putting it on then back the car up. Otherwise search E brake here.

 

we replace lots of the gm brake rotors at work when this happens. there is a small drum system inside of the disc rotor for the e-brake pads. the gm rotors are spendy and the same as the $25.00 napa ones if you need to replace it. we have found it more cost effective to replace the rotor rather then even trying to turn the inside drum. i personally have never done either. just authorize the shop to do it about 2-4 times weekly on gm cars/trucks. they become toast rather quickly when the e-brake is left on. and i'm talkin less than a mile. it may be adjustable but... they go bad quick!!! and its not too spendy for the parts to just fix it like new. and well worth it especially if you own a 6spd. ask over in tech section. they would be able to tell you faster than i could look it up in the manual

 

The repair manual tells you to back up at 10 mph and pull the handle up ...........repeat three times..........I just did it it works

 

TOPLS90 nice chice of color

 

I had it saved but can't find it. Go to the tech section, search e brake adjustment and you will find a post by et that covers it correctly. Backing up and pulling the brake helps some of the slack in the cable is what I have read, not necessarily the brakes.

 

I have instructions on how to adjust the E brake in Word format complete with step by step photos. If anywone wants a copy just PM with your email address and I will send it to you

 

SHoot those instructions to stepuptata@adelphia.net. Thanks,TRoy.

 

I tried the back up trick. I seemed to help a bit but it will roll if ever parked on a hill.

 

Sent you a PM too...thanks!

 

-> HERE <-

Please don't think of it as an emergency brake though, or you will be disappointed.

 

Here's a similar writeup from several forum members on how to adjust the parking brake:

Take the rear rotors off and adjust the star wheels. Adjust the wheel until the brake pad started to make contact with the rotor and scrape a little as the rotor was put back on. There’s a little lip on the edge of the rotor so if you adjust it until it scrapes that lip, when the rotor is all the way on, it will still have clearance and not scrape.

Once a month, let your car roll backwards and pull-up hard on the emergency brake enough to slam the car to a stop. You only need to be going 1 or 2 miles per hour… do this three times. Each pull will make one click on the star wheel. You cannot over adjust it. It may only click once or not at all.

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To start the procedure, make sure your parking brake is OFF (NOT engaged) and the car is in park or in gear. Just jack up and remove one of the rear wheels. Then remove the two bolts holding the brake caliper on. These are the two larger bolts around back, behind the rotor. Then just slide the caliper with shoes still attached off the rotor and set it on a box or some other object placed under the car. Don’t hang it by the brake line or otherwise it can cause stress to that line. The rotor should then pull right off the hub. If not, give the center of the rotor (near the lug stems) a whack or two with a hammer (don’t bang on the rotor surfaces). I had to tap several times to loosen them up.

Once you get the rotor off, you’ll see the little star wheel to the side of the giant brake shoe. You’ll see a small clearance between the star wheel and its “plunger.” The object is to expand this clearance. I used a sharp screwdriver, placed the blade between two of the teeth and tapped lightly with a hammer to turn the wheel (you should only have to tap very lightly). This just seemed to be the easiest method. Don’t use a fat headed screwdriver or tap too far each time because you don’t want the screwdriver to slip out of the notch and dent/strip the teeth on the wheel. If you are careful, this should work fine. I suspect they are all the same, so you would tap the wheel so that your screwdriver is going from right to left to open it up (increase the gap).

As you open it up little by little, put the rotor back on a few times during this process to see when it starts to get tight. When the brake shoe expands to the size of the outer lip on the rotor, it will start to get difficult to get the rotor back on as the shoe will scrape the lip as you put it back on. When you put the rotor back on, you should be feeling some resistance from the shoe as it scrapes the outer lip on the rotor. IF THERE IS A LOT OF RESISTANCE, DON’T FORCE THE ROTOR BACK ON!!! If you do and decide you want to back it off a little, you may not be able to get the rotor back off without pulling that big brake shoe off with it, and that could be a real pain.

Just keep testing it with the rotor as you go and as soon as you feel a light resistance when putting the rotor back on, that should be good enough. As a precaution, you can jiggle the rotor clockwise/
counterclockwise on the hub just to make sure that it still turns freely. It should move a few degrees easily both ways as there is a little slack between the rotor and the lug stems, and some more slack in the CV’s.

I doubt it is possible to over-adjust the mechanism and still be able to get the rotors back on because there is at least a 1mm lip on the inside of the rotor and that is what scrapes when you put the rotor back on, not the braking surface. Once you clear that lip, there should be plenty of slack so that the shoes don’t scrape the brake surface.

As they say, assembly is the reverse of the above. I would do both sides like this without messing with the parking brake lever in between. During the procedure when doing both sides in the rear, don’t fool with the brake lever (especially when the rotor is off).



Hope this helps.

 

sounds like a peice of cake. Thanks for the help,Troy.

 

 

Great information to have, I think I may need to adjust mine as well.

 

Look at my post yesterday on a similar question. Pull Rotors and adjust star wheels. GM calls it a PARKING BRAKE cause it ALMOSTS lets you park on a hill.

BIGHANK