Next up is a weak parking brake on this new to me vehicle. I have worked on my F-250 with disc brakes/drum parking brake so I am about to see the similarities and differences between them. Having performing a search on the subject I'm going to guess that there is some sort of linkage or actuator at the axles that is frozen up, that's what it was on my truck. Any pointers or warnings before I dig in?

Thanks

 

Yes, if you have rear disc brakes, the parking brake (or Park Break as GM calls it) consists of brake shoes and a drum that is the backside of the rear rotors. These have adjusters that you have to set manually for the initial setting.

Sounds like you are probably familiar with this system and will not have much of a problem with it. I on the other hand, I had to spend an afternoon trying to figure out why my parking brake wouldn't hold even after having had it at the dealer to fix it. (It was the last time I used them for anything.)

 

For youngsters it's called a parking brake, geezers like me know to go for it when the brakes fail and we call it an emergency brake. Stealerships usually bite, they're overpriced and usually less competent than I am.

 

Unless there’s a geezer working there, then he could help you set the points when it starts missing under load

 

Oh I learned it as an emergency brake myself.

I like to tell people that I learned to double-clutch before I learned how to drive by watching my father drive our old 66 3/4 Chevy PU.

 

Got the parking brake off and picking up new shoes tomorrow AM. That is one strange parking brake.

 

They have a pretty simple design. The thing that usually fails is the backing plate rusts out, which if it gets bad enough will cause the brake shoes to not sit properly in the assembly. Most people just call the parking brakes a lost cause at that point, because in order to replace the backing plate (properly anyway) you have to pull the axles all the way out, which involves digging into the rear end further than a lot of people feel comfortable with, or just don't want to bother... And I know because I did just that not long ago on my 04 lol. I finally have a working parking brake again after like 4 years of not having one...

When you go to reassemble, make sure you adjust them with the threaded adjuster on the bottom. I don't think they auto adjust like normal drum brakes (at least mine would not, even with all new hardware...). Run the adjuster all the way in before installing your new shoes. Then put the rotor on. With the adjuster threaded all the way in, you should be able to turn it with no drag from the parking shoe. Then it's just a trial and error process, pulling the rotor back off, turning the adjuster some to open the shoe up a little, fitting the rotor back on and checking for drag, rinse and repeat... In the end, the adjuster will have the shoe out to the point where you can't fit the rotor on. At that point, run the adjuster back in a little so you can fit the rotor on, spin it to make sure there's no drag (you might hear the shoe dragging on the rotor, but as long as it's not physically holding it from spinning, it should be fine), and you should be good to go. Do all of this with the parking brake NOT engaged obviously.

 

Thanks for all that, blazen_red, you answered other questions I had as well. My backing plates have seen better days but I'm not going to go through all that to remove them, particularly since I just replaced that rear axle cover last week.

 

OK, I don't see how the rotted backing plate can affect the parking brake. I do see how it can let more water and dirt in there. Where I'm at now is that it looks like the driver's side cable is not adjustable and the cable is holding the shoes out a tad. The only adjustment I see is for the passenger's side where it splits off. Is there an adjustment that I'm missing? I had to hammer the rotor off and it looks like I'm going to have to hammer it back on. I'm going to put it in gear and see if a spinning rotor won't go on a little easier as soon as I finish painting and re-installing the battery tray and the battery.

 

I've attached the directions for servicing and adjusting the parking brake from my 99 Service Manual.

Page 5-122 has the adjustment procedure.