My emergency brake works but not well and the lever travels to its end. Is there a way to adjust the cable so that i have better brake control? I have a C5 now and haven't changed my profile.

Thanks
Wayne

 

This is common on most C5s. The easiest thing to do is find a safe place where you can can back the car in reverse for 100 feet. Slowly back up and pull the emergency brake up as far as you can and then back down again, reapeat this about 10 times and you should be good to go. You may hear some clicking noises in the rear while doing this. Its the self-adjusting cable tightening up.

 

The proper adjustment methosd is a little more difficult than just backing the car up. That used to work on cam action drum brakes but will have no effect on your in disc e-brake. Jack up rear of car and support on two jack stands. Remove wheels, remove brake caliper, remove caliper mounting bracket - this is difficult due to lok-tight on bolts from factory. Release e brake and remove rotor. Blow out the dust and garbage in the rotor and brake. There is a star wheel between the ends of the brake shoe. This is where your adjustment must be done. Turn the star wheel so that the shoes expand, badly adjusted shoes might take a couple of complete turns to expand them to where they need to be. They should be as far out as you can get and still reinstall the disc. NOTE: be sure that the shoes are centered, they will move slightly and will cause the adjustment to be off as only one shoe will contact the drum on disc install. Reinstall the rotors and apply the e brake firmly. It should stop about half way up if you have adjusted star wheel properly. If it is higher, remove the rotors and take several more clicks on the star wheel. The entire process can be done in an hour or so. Aproperly adjusted E brakes will hold the car on an incline and actually work - relatively well - in a driving situation.

 

Two issues here:
1) adjusting the slack in the cable can be done by rolling backward and pumping the e brake handle 5 or 6 times, this is designed in to adjust only the cable slack.

2 adjusting the shoe ( ONE SHOE ).. there is only One shoe ( it's a monoshoe with a split.... This is the usual culprit. Before I left GM I tried to address this issue, but red tape made it impossible to get an adjustment check "On the line" at BG.

Adjusting the "Shoe is a simple matter of removing the wheel, caliper, caliper bracket, and rotor. ( Note be sure the Ebrake is disengaged )
Once the rotor is off you can "click the star adjuster", rotating it in such a manner as to spread the Mono-shoe and increase the outside diameter.

The usual adjustment is around 20 to 40 clicks:
Adjust the star ten click and try to put the rotor back on.
It may be tight but if it goes on, it is not adjusted properly.
adjust the star again ten more clicks, see if it goes on....
Do this at ten click and no more per each try.... somewhere between 20 and 40 clicks, the rotor will be impossible to put on.
Once you find this point, you then back off on the star 3 or 4 click until your can force the rotor over the shoe.

If you can force the rotor on by hand you are doing good...here is where most people fail in their attempt to adjust properly..,

Once the rotor sits flush on the hub boss, there will be alittle more clearance for the shoe, so forcing it on will not be a "too tight" issue.
You can not force the rotor over the shoe and have it too tight, it just wont happen.

Once you make this adjustment to both rear wheels, you should see that your e brake lever locks up the ebrake at about 45 degrees, 90 degrees being straight up...

Disengaging the ebrake will occur at about 35 degrees...

Once this is done properly, you will be able to stop your car with the ebrake doing 20 miles an hour and you will never feel the ebrake is inadequate.

Good luck.. hundreds have followed my tech tip on this issue
Bill aka ET

 

Thanks I'll give it a try.

Wayne