Bad E Brake?

10-03-2005, 04:26 PM

My E Brake dosnt work. Well it works but it dosnt stop my car. It has absolutly no resistance when i pull it. In the rain i pulled it it slowed down kinda, but i could hear the braking rubbing on and off. Also, it wont hold the car in place, it rolls right down my driveway when engaged. Im guessing i needa take it to the dealer and have them fix this for me.....

AftermathAlero · 10-03-2005, 04:34 PM

change ur ebrake pads .. if u have rear disc brakes.. You also have an inner set for the ebrake. If you have drum brakes in the rear, then you might need to resurface or get new shoes pads in the rear.

10-03-2005, 07:20 PM

ok. I read about the E brake being a seprate brake. So i take the actual pads just wore down to nothing?

10-03-2005, 09:29 PM

Yeah my car does the same thing, I do not know if the E Brake is the same on our cars as older cars where you can adjust the E Brake or not.

If you can adjust it, try that or you might have to replace the E Brake pads. I am going to check it out when i have more time and do which ever I can to fix it.

10-04-2005, 05:34 PM

yeah, we do have the same, lol

10-07-2005, 09:14 PM

Lol nice, i think our rims are differant though.

P.S. still havent' gotten around to doing anthing about this yet.

Molson · 10-07-2005, 09:25 PM

new set of rear rotors should do the trick. it did for me, there was plenty of ebrake shoe left, just needed a set of rotors. (do pads too tho, not the ebrake shoes)

turtles_ride · 10-07-2005, 09:37 PM

mine didn't work, i think i drove a few times with it on when i first got my car. when you take your back assembly off you can see a little knob between the pads that you can actually turn to adjust the setting or the tension on the ebrake cable. this is all i had to do with mine and now they work fine.

10-07-2005, 11:36 PM

YEa thats kinda what i figured but i have never done it on an alero so of the older cars i have worked on the adjustment was on the cable coming off of the e brake pedal.

Also i don't see how replaceing the rotors would do much i think the pads would ware down much faster then the rotors but i could be wrong if it worked for you then somthing must have had to be going on there then.

AftermathAlero · 10-07-2005, 11:58 PM

If you have disc brakes in the rear, The brake pads itself has nothing to do with the ebrake. Inside of the rear rotor area is the ebrake pads/shoe (whatever the name is). Its separate.

Molson · 10-08-2005, 10:37 AM

I only used my ebrake when parking (5 speed) I didn't do slides, etc. When the brakes wore normally, the drum for the ebrake wore too, I thought I would need new ebrake hardware, but once I put the rotors on it was fine.

10-08-2005, 01:43 PM

Ohh i see, that makes sense, i supose that it being a 5 speed and you useing it much more then i do with my auto that might explain the differance in wear.

fyi. aftermath the ones inside are shoes. and the ones inside calipers are pads.

ImSoBored · 10-10-2005, 06:39 PM

tighten up your cable.

turtles_ride · 10-10-2005, 08:36 PM

i'll explain it as best as i can. first of all our rear brakes are a combination of the disk on the outside (with a caliper that squeezes against it for our regular brakes) and the ebrake works on the inside of the drum that the disk is attached to. So to get at the ebrake pads you have to take off the rear caliper assembly by undoing the 2 bolts and putting it aside. Once its off you have to pull off the rear disk/drum, you should be able to wiggle it off, if you can't you'll have to hit the centre drum part with a hammer to loosen it, it may be rusted a bit (don't hit the disk part you may warp it. When you pull it off, you'll see the ebrake pads and the little adjuster nut in the center. If your pads look worn you'll have to replace them, if they're not that bad, try turning the nut by pushing on the grooves with a screwdriver to make them hit the drum sooner when you pull your ebake lever. Put the drum/disk rear thing back on and make sure that it still spins without too much rubbing, put everything back together and check to see if they work any better. thats what i did, i'll post a pic in the thread

10-10-2005, 11:23 PM

tighten the cable? ha easier said than done..... a little more explenation

01-02-2006, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by turtles_ride@Oct 10 2005, 07:36 PM
i'll explain it as best as i can. first of all our rear brakes are a combination of the disk on the outside (with a caliper that squeezes against it for our regular brakes) and the ebrake works on the inside of the drum that the disk is attached to. So to get at the ebrake pads you have to take off the rear caliper assembly by undoing the 2 bolts and putting it aside. Once its off you have to pull off the rear disk/drum, you should be able to wiggle it off, if you can't you'll have to hit the centre drum part with a hammer to loosen it, it may be rusted a bit (don't hit the disk part you may warp it. When you pull it off, you'll see the ebrake pads and the little adjuster nut in the center. If your pads look worn you'll have to replace them, if they're not that bad, try turning the nut by pushing on the grooves with a screwdriver to make them hit the drum sooner when you pull your ebake lever. Put the drum/disk rear thing back on and make sure that it still spins without too much rubbing, put everything back together and check to see if they work any better. thats what i did, i'll post a pic in the thread

Quoted post

Good explanation and photo, helps resolve my problem.