I tried to adjust the ebrake on the passenger side of my c6 but the star wheel seemed to be frozen. it would not move. the adjuster seems to be all the way down. the brake has never been adjusted so it must have been this way from the factory. when I pulled the rotor, it came right off and the drum appears to show no wear to speak of. how do I unfreeze the star wheel so I can adjust the ebrake?

 

Penetrating oil.

 

It's probably frozen with a mix of dry grease/rust. You can take the assembly apart and then apply a torch to it to see if heating it will break it apart. The good news is that it actually is cheap to replace. It's a lot easier to work with rather than trying to clean up the old parts.

http://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/c...ware+kit,10289

 

PB Blaster works wonders, just make sure you don't getting on the E-brake shoes. Also be careful not to dislodge the "W" retaining spring that holds the shoes in place. It is a PITA to get back into place.

 

 

Not a bad video, but without the star adjusters adjusted correctly, your going to pull the e brake all the way up, and still not have the E brakes lock the rotors up correctly.

So adjust the star adjusters correctly, you first have to make sure that the rotor brake drums do not have a none wear lip to the outside of the drums. The reason for this, is the rotor have to taken off to adjust the pad, and them put back on to check the the adjustment (no inner slot to work a brake adjuster tool through to work the star adjuster that way instead. If needed, take the rear rotor down to a shop to have the lip section turned off the drum section of the rotors. Only the lips need to be removed and at most a light pass to the rest of the drum section of the rotor isntead.


Now with lipless drums, you can start adjust the star gear to adjust the pads. Hence you want the pad as close to the drums surface as possible, but when the rotors are turned for a complete rotation turn, the E shoe pads make no contact (hiss) to the drum surfaces. So adjust the star adjusters to begin with putting the rotors on and taking them back off to make the needed adjustments, and before you call a side good, pull the E brake handle all the way up to resistance, lower it, and double check with a full rotor rotation again.

After you have the other side down and checked, now get in the car and pull the lever up while counting the clicks. Around 8 click is about right, and when the pads wear and the click amount gets past 14, then it time to readjust the E brakes again.

If you have the pads adjusted correctly, and still more than say 14 clicks up on the E handle, then suspect that one of your cam levers for the E brake assembly has snapped or worn out instead. The cam lever is part #3, but GM does not sell it as a single part only. Hence you either have to find a good one from a salvage shop, or will need to buy the entire brake kit (part #K01) that is retained via two number 13 bolts from GM instead.
http://www.wholesalegmpartsonline.co...category=19393

 

If you put new shoes on like are in the video, you will have gobs of e-brake when you pull the handle.
There was no need for adjustment.

 

been there done that already!

 

my rotor had no lip on the drum part. the disc does but not the drum. I backed the car onto my driveway that has decent slope and pulled the ebrake three times. each time the brake locked the car right up with the brake handle around 45 degrees and stopped it immediately. seems to be functioning as it should. also parked it on a hill and it firmly held the car with handle in the same position. I'll probably leave it as is for now and keep checking it. thanks for the replies.