Need to adjust e-brake, again
 

Like the title says:

In September, I took apart my rear brakes to "adjust" my parking brake.

Worked fine up until a week ago. Now when I park the car and set the brake, the ebrake doesn't hold.

I'm willing to do the work again, but it is a PIA to do, not hard, just a PIA. What should I be looking for that it's falling out of adjustment?

Can't answer your question, but you drive an auto. Never understood why so many people have the e-brake pulled no matter what when they park. Co-workers do it with our freakin' company minivans, even.

even with an auto the car can roll to a certain degree... this degree can lock up the transmission to the point where it will not shift into gear, without rocking the car back to the original position when parked... now that is a PITA if you are by yourself...

drums or disks?

I still haven't got my ebreak adjusted sence I dI'd the drum to disk convertion. Couldn't figure out to get more length on the main cable.

My moms 08 impala does this. It's annoying as shit

Rear disk

well then there isnt much inside to go wrong. Main thing us to make sure ur cables are not sticking otherwise it causes premature wear which im sure u know. have an assistant pull and release the ebrake while u watch the cables at the brakes. If one or both doesnt move freely remove it from the b rake and make sure its the cable and not the brake its self. Otherwise iirc these brakes are prettymuch bulletproof other then operator error

There is a arm that goes through the back of the rotor to the internal parking brake shoes. That actuator goes bad too sometimes. There is a seal there that wears out and water gets in and messes it up. Last year we had to replace both sides on my brother in laws car, same issue...

yes the cables can get stuck pretty good. Ask my how I know

Bumping this.


How do you adjust the e brake? Same applies as redog, rear disk, but also its like a rear disc/drum setup. You have the disc brake then inside the center of the rotor there are "shoes" that lock up to the inside of the rotor. The shoes have plenty of life, but when i lock the ebrake whats weird is if...

Say there is a steep driveway, with the garage at the top of it, if i pull forward up to the garage. Put car in N, lock e brake the car will roll backwards. If i back up the driveway to the garage door, lock ebrake. It will hold fine?

morning sleepy :)
first, the Aleros e-brake is a "drum in hat" design. Quite common if u look for good brake values, easy maintenance and price.

a drum brake has a extremely good advantage over disc brakes - thats why it was used on cars. The english wiki articel is lacking this main feature - "Selbstverstärkung" - which means that the brake shoes grabs harder / better than u would normally think. That is thanks to the circular motion the hat does around the shoes. If u apply the brake the shoe gets pulled with the hat - hence braking better than the brake force u applied with ur foot or the lever.

Due to the contstruction of the Alero e-brake this self enforcing characteristic is, sadly, only given in the forward motion of the car. Haven this self-enforcing in both ways is extremely difficult to achieve.

How u adjust the e-brake.
first of, check if all 3 of the brake cables move smoothly. - this is vital in the Alero brake system
than, spread the shoes so far that u feel and hear drag as u put on the hat. Depending on the milage it can get pretty tough to get the hat on/off and have the shoes drag.
here u will also see that forward spinning the wheel has more drag than backwards.
than u pull the lever a few times - at half way pulled the brakes on both sides should be rock solid.
here cheap rotors make life hard as u deform the rotor by pulling - hence u can pull the lever all the way up. (learned this the hard way)

if u have have good rotos (hat) and after some pulls the lever way is still extreme.
go back and spread the shoes 1 or 2 clicks further. getting the brakes on/off is now almost impossible (spinning back and forth helps getting the hat off)
take out ur console and look at the mechanic of the lever.
the automatic mechanics can be adjusted slightly. -- have to get the drawings and describtion before I write something here about that.

Don't the alero ebrakes self adjust?

read my post.
the r intended to do so. And this makes proper adjustment and low lever travels very difficult - causes a lot of grief with german TÜV here.

but the clockspring in the lever can only do a good job if the cables and shoes move very smoothly

Okay i think i get it. Thanks

ur welcome :)

Make sure the parking brake shoe is centered evenly on the backing plate as best as possible. Using a caliper, measure the widest point on the parking brake shoe while adjusting the actuator screw accordingly to a reading of 175mm on the caliper tool. 175mm will get you in the ballpark for final fine tuning adjustments.

Place the rotor on the hub and fully screw on all five lug nuts by hand. This is necessary to keep the rotor parallel and from flopping around which affects parking brake adjustment. Now spin the rotor by hand while listening for any rubbing and also feeling for drag, then determine where the rubbing is happening. This can also be done by removing the rotor and inspecting the shoe pad material for signs of contact which should be very easy to see.

Gently bump the parking brake shoe by hand in the direction away from where it is touching the rotor and repeat the test until there is little to no rotor rubbing or drag. A small amount of rubbing is fine, but too much drag will prematurely wear out the parking brake shoes and affect parking brake operation.

With the rotors back on the hub as above, pull the parking brake lever up all the way and try to turn the rotors by hand in both directions to check the degree to which the parking brake shoes are holding. Sometimes they won't move at all or maybe just a little or only in one direction. You must apply enough turning force as if the wheel is mounted on the rotor, but hand force is fine so no need to break out the pry bars.

If the rotor still moves, release the parking brake and remove the rotor. Adjust the actuator screw out a few clicks and repeat the test. Do not move the actuator screw more than 2-3 clicks at a time otherwise you could create unnecessary drag and it doesn't take much. The brakes are properly adjusted once you can not turn the rotors in either direction with the parking brake on and there is minimal to no rotor drag with the parking brake off.

Note: I have found that the parking brake lever needs to be pulled all the way up otherwise the parking brake may not fully hold the vehicle from moving.

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Thanks as well starglow, i will be working on this later today since i have all my wheels off.

I know your post is rather old at this point, but I can tell you how to fix this problem if you haven't already found a solution...just let me know.

He doesnt have an alero anymore.

He is now a mustang owner..... Sigh