Recently, I've noticed a new noise when backing out of my driveway and starting off down the street in the morning. It's a light scraping noise, like a thin wire, tree branch, or some such thing, might make rubbing on something that's rotating. It matches road speed, not engine speed, and doesn't change when I put it in neutral, step on the brake, or pull up on the parking brake lever. The first time it happened, I literally thought a small twig had blown up under the car & was rubbing on one of the drive axles, but there's nothing there. Strangely, it goes away within the first few hundred yards of driving, stays completely silent, and doesn't return until the car is parked for the day or overnight.

It sounds like it's coming from the rear of the car, near the driver's side wheel. Assuming that it was in the brake/hub assembly, I took off the rear wheels & rotors to have a look. The only thing unusual that I found is that when I pulled off the driver's side rotor, the wire spring that holds the parking brake shoe in place fell out. So I'm wondering if it had somehow come out of place, & started scraping on the rotor as it rotated. If so, it puzzles me that it would go away after I drove a little. After reassembling, the noise is gone now, but the true test will be after it sits overnight.

Anyway, this leaves me with 2 questions:

1. My parking brake will not hold the car on a slope. (It was better before, so I must have screwed something up) I set the adjusters on the brake backing plate so that I was just able to get the rotors back on. From the looks of things, the self-adjustment action must take someplace other than at the wheels, like maybe in the lever you pull to set the brake? Is there something to adjust in the lever assembly? The manual only says to apply & release the parking brake several times, but that has no effect on mine. (Never did)

2. When I replaced the wire spring that holds the parking brake shoe in place, it was quite a job. Am I missing an easy way to do this, or what? If I understand it correctly, the center of the spring and the 2 ends press against the inside of the shoe assembly, and there are 2 small offset sections about 1/2" long that seem to hook under 2 tabs on the backing plate. I was unsuccessful getting it back together until I made a sort of hook thing out of some wire to snag the ends & get them in place after I got the 2 places hooked in the backing plate tabs.

Any & all thoughts & opinions are welcome. Hopefully, if you've had yours apart, what I described above makes sense.

Thanks,
Steve.

 

I dont know what the rubbing noise is.. But I can help you with understanding the e brake system... I do Not know why you took off the shoe retainer springs.. Has this noise been noticed since you played with the e brake... First.. there is no adjustment at the lever... the action takes place simple by letting the car drift backwards.. one or two miles an hour.. and with the lever only... pull up to stop the car... as you go in reverse.. the action of the shoe against the drum... flexes the shoe assembly forward enough to make one click of the star adjuster.. ( People think they can just pull up on the lever without the car moving and think it will do something , but it will Not.) It is important to note that if your shoes are way out of adjustment .. the auto adjust feature will Not work.. your lever has to fully stop the car with no more than 45 to 50 degrees of the lever.. 90degrees, being straight up... Look at MY instructions ..in Tech tips.. this self adjusting system has been around for thirty years and uses the same principles as standard shoe brakes for self adjusting.. except instead of pumping the brakes while going backwards.. you use the e brake lever to flex the shoes and adjust them... all you have to do ever few months is pull up on that lever three or four times while going in reverse..you can not over adjust the shoes using this method..
I hope this helps you.. as far as the retainer springs.. there is a tool to take them off and put them on..
Good Luck
Bill ( Evil-Twin)

 

Well, from my disassembly & inspection, there is nothing in there that would rotate the star wheel as you describe. I'm familiar with the usual self-adjusting systems which use a lever, actuated by brake shoe movement, to click & advance the star wheel. Nothing contacts the star wheel on my brakes except a small fixed spring metal piece which apparently holds the star wheel in whatever position you set it to, using the measuring tool shown in the service manual.

The manuals make no mention of applying the parking brake while moving to adjust it.

In any event, the noise is now gone, so I assume it was due to the shoe retainer spring wire, which had come out of place somehow. I'd like to see the tool that installs that spring, if anyone has a photo; there was barely enough room to poke in there with some skinny screwdrivers (between the wheel mounting flange & brake shoe) to get it in place.

 

Evil-Twin. Can you provide the link to your e-brake adjustment procedure? I wasn't able to find it. Thanks :seeya


[Modified by DAWS C5, 9:08 AM 11/25/2001]

 

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO IT.. It was in the tech tips with two other forum members tips.,,, the other two tips were totally wrong.. and gave some bad information.. I do Not have a copy of it.. I took the time and submitted it here to the forum and many ppl used it and thanked me for the indepth instructions..
Ill do a search of my archived posts to se if I can find anything

 

I went to the archieves and non of my posts on the e brake adjustment are there... and MY tech tip at the top of the main page is also gone.. I guess they lost all that info,,,

 

The Word From Evil-Twin:

"OK, so here is the deal. When my car was new, the e brake never worked right. I had to set it all the way up and it barely held. I took it back to the dealer, and they said brakes are a wear item and it would cost me to fix it. They said the shoes were probably worn. I said to myself, how can they be worn? The car is always stopped when the e brake is applied. When I bought my ripper shifter, I let a friend of mine try it out. He parked the car, left it in neutral and applied the e brake. As it slowly rolled away I dove through the window he left open and threw it into gear. That day I went home and pledged to fix the e brake. Here it goes.

I took off the real wheels, calipers and caliper brackets, pulled the rotors off, and looked at the shoes. They looked fine. The drum part of the rotors looked fine. I slip-fitted the rotor over the shoes. There was no feel for the shoes ( meaning I could not feel the shoes on the drums). So I saw the star adjuster and the auto adjust mechanism. I pulled the adjusterblade away from the star adjuster. (This is the same system that is on most drum rear brake systems), noting which way the adjuster blade would sroke to adjust the star. I then clicked the star adjuster ten clicks and refit the rotor - still no drag. I took off the rotor again, clicked ten more and still no grab, 10 more, still no drag (the rotor slipped right on), 10 more (thatÕs 40 ) and I felt a slight drag. 5 more and I could not get the rotor over the shoes. I backed off two clicks, and the rotor went on with drag. I did the same thing to the other side, then reinstalled the rotors, calipers and wheels. When I went to pull up on the lever, it only went up about 6 inches as opposed to a full stroke of maybe 15 inches. I was concerned about the shoes being too tight, so I took the car to the edge of my driveway, a 20 degree incline. I set the parking brake with the engine off and slowly released the the e brake lever, and at 5 inches the car rolled backwards without any drag. I then tested the e brake by driving bakwards at about 5 mph and pulled on the e brake. At 6 inches it locked up the rear wheels. Now when I use the auto adjust feature it requires that you be moving backwards and pull up on the handle, and it will cause the shoies to flex backwards and the adjuster blade will make one click tighter of the adjuster. You cannot overadjust with this method, but the auto adjuster will not work unless you are less than half of the full lever stroke. In other words, if you canÕt lock up the shoes in a very positive manner the adjuster will not work. I feel I could be driving 10 or 15 miles an hour and have a major brake failure and still be able to stop my car in a very quick manner. There is nothing wrong with the Ebrake system; it has worked for two years and 20,000 miles now that I fixed it that one time. I can be more specific if anyone needs a hand, but this is one area that I have a lock on."

 

Evil-Twin- I noticed that yours is a 99; mine is a 98, maybe they changed something? As I mentioned, mine has no "adjuster blades" that would rotate the star wheel.

Of course I bought mine used, so maybe the previous owner left something out when he worked on it!

 

George. Thanks for digging it up for me. :)