I've just finished doing a gslse rear end/brake swap on my 79, and I can't seem to get the e-brake adjusted properly.

I bled the brakes, loosened the screw at the e-brake handle, hooked up both e-brake cables to the calipers, and then tightened the screw at the handle so that I get 3-5 clicks when I pull the handle.

The handle is nice and tight, but my car still rolls on an incline. Am I missing something? I bought rebuilt calipers, could something be wrong with the caliper? What should I look for next?

And just for fun, here is a pic of my 79 with the se brakes and my 17s.

 

Silly question. Have you tried just tightening it further? If its rolling down hill still, it sounds to me like its just not tightened enough yet.

 

yeah I've tightened it so that it takes 2 clicks to pull the handle up. But the car was still rolling. The handle is really tight, but it seems the rear calipers aren't stopping the car.

I'll try bleeding the brakes again. The brake pedal feels nice and firm though.

 

check to see if the inboard pads have a protruding nub in the middle of them. If it has this it should line up in the caliper piston slot. Otherwise, it could have an adjustment on the opposite end of the piston that is covered by a plug. I don't have access to that caliper but those are a couple of things to check. The lever that actuate the parking brake on each caliper sounds maxed out. So it will bottom out before the piston has a chance to clamp down.

 

My e-brake finally works! Problem is I don't really know what I did to make it work.

I drove the car around for a week, so maybe something in the mechanism on the calipers was seized and got freed up.

Last night, before trying to use my ebrake again, I drained some of the fluid from the rear right caliper, because I noticed that I had put too much in the master. Then I loosened my e-brake cable at the handle so that it takes about 6-7 clicks, and it works!

I'm not really sure what the problem was, but I'm glad it works now. It actually stops my car on a hill.