Emergency brake
 

If you follow the instructions in the shop manual, it is very doable.

Some mistakes I made so you don't have to:
Really follow the instructions in the shop manual.
Follow the instructions, even though you will need to buy a 100 lb fish scale from Amazon or Bass Pro Shops.
You don't have to connect your half-shafts to get an okay brake adjustment, but you should if you want to do it correctly (I didn't, and had to redo it a few times).
Make sure everything is lined up first, so that you are engaging both brakes. (The levers popped out of one of my sets of shoes).

If you need to go deeper than an adjustment, don't mix stainless hardware with stainless shoes. Stick to the OEM-style shoes. (This mistake cost me about full workday, spread out over several weeks waiting for parts to arrive).
Look up the dental floss trick, and have a good set of needlenose pliers, if you need to replace the hardware and spring retainers. Hopefully this is not the case for you.

Good luck!

Hi f,
The cable that runs from the parking brake mechanism to the brakes themselves is adjusted (tightened or loosened) from under the car.
There are two nuts that need to be tightened to take any slack out of the cable.
If doing that doesn't give you the results you're looking for then the parking brake shoes themselves need to be adjusted.
See if tightening the cable first will help.
Regards,
Alan


Often there is one nut on each side of that little clip rather than both on the same side.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/6...923/Q127UP.jpg

The best practice is to remove the half shafts but the parking brake can be adjusted with the half shafts installed if you compensate for the additional drag.

With the lug nuts installed on the rotor start by adjusting the star wheel.
Insert a screwdriver into the star adjuster and pull up from the floor until the wheel will not turn. Then back off 7 to 9 teeth.

Then adjust the cables (shown in Alan's picture) until the parking brake handle stops (and the PB holds) at the 14th click.

The pull on the handle should be 80 lbs going from the 13th to 14th click (per the Shop Manual). This is the part that requires a fish scale. It seems ridiculous, but it works, assuming you've adjusted both sets of shoes correctly per above.

After adjusting the star, I found that a few taps with a soft face hammer on the rotor helped ensuring that the jaws were really locked on it before backing it off a few notches.

80lbs of force, is that
with or without the half shafts connected?

The 80 lbs of force is after the shoes are adjusted with the adjusting star. One method is to remove the half-shafts. Peterbuilt's method (above) is what I did, but I had to do it a few times to get it just right. Turns out that is what is in the shop manual.

I used some 550 tactical cord and a fish scale to get the 80 lbs measurement. If you can read it (I can't rotate it), here is the procedure from the 1980 Corvette Shop Manual. If you don't have one, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's $24- from Rock Auto.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...041152&jsn=424

Go to this link and click on supporting document.

http://repairs.willcoxcorvette.com/1...ke-adjustment/

Willcox,
What's the scoop on the recommendation to NOT uses SS hardware with SS shoes?