Witmer

With the help of Google and the Corvette Forum, I could not find a good procedure for reattaching the parking brake shoe, so I am documenting below how I did it.

In trying to swap my pads and rotors back to my street setup, I ran into a problem. I could not get the passenger-side rear rotor to come off. By pulling on the rotor, the parking brake shoe started to come with it and the holding spring inside the shoe became dislodged. This resulted in a parking brake shoe caught on the hub, stuck half inside and half outside and preventing the rotor from sliding off. With a screwdriver as a pry bar and a rubber mallet, I was able to get the parking brake shoe completely dislodged. I slid the rotor off and the shoe and spring fell to the ground.

So for me, this was now uncharted territory, so I went to the internet with my phone. No luck. Best I could find was a YouTube video of a C6 that at least gave me an idea of the direction that the spring fit back in. I learned that the proper procedure for re-installing the parking brake shoe was to remove the hub. It could be done without the hub off, but is a PITA. Taking the hub off was more than I wanted to tackle.

After much trial and error, the thought of using zip ties occurred to me.

Here is a picture of the parking brake adjuster at the 7 to 8 o’clock position. It sits behind the hub but in front of the dust shield. The parking brake shoe has to get over the hub and pried open a bit to attach to either end of the adjuster. Not too hard, except that there is a spring that needs to be both inside the shoe and connected to the dust shield.



Here is where the zip ties helped. I put a zip tie around the spring and fed both ends through the back of the clip hole in the dust shield (I’m holding it in the picture). This clip is at the 12 o’clock position. A second zip tie is on the left side of the spring and will be used to pull the spring forward into the shoe.



On the other side, the second clip in the dust shield is at about 4 o’clock. Again, the zip tie goes around the spring and both ends through the clip hole. I’m holding the zip tie in the picture. This is how I will pull the spring back into the clip. Another zip tie is around the spring at about 6 o’clock. This is how I will pull the spring forward into the shoe.



Next I got the parking brake shoe around and behind the hub. I pulled the zip ties on the left and right ends of the spring forward to get the spring ends inside the shoe. Then I pried the shoe open a bit to fit it around both ends of the adjuster. With the shoe now in place and the spring inside of it, I pulled the zip ties hanging out the back to pull the spring backward and into the clips in the dust shield.

In this picture, I can see that the spring is in the clip at the 12 o’clock position.



In this picture, I can see that the spring is in the clip at roughly the 4 o’clock position.



And here is a picture of the final assembly. I then had to snip the four zip ties and remove them. The rotor fit over the brake shoe snuggly, with no issue.




Hope this helps someone in the future that runs into the same issue. No need for any special tools. Having done it once, I should be able to reattach the parking brake shoe quickly if this happens to me again.

Vetteman Jack

Thanks for the write up. I plan to save this for future reference.

Tusc

Too bad the pictures didn't save. I learned my lesson on some old threads of mine and now upload all photos to the forum when posting. They can 'never' be lost then.

Yello95

Great info for the do it yourselfer