I redid the rear brakes on my car a few months ago. It's an 80 with the stock rear drum brakes. When I first got the car I knew the rear brakes needed to be redone and the parking brake was really weak. When I first redid the brakes the parking brake was nice and strong and the handle would only go about 3/4 of the way up before it would stop. Then shortly after that I felt it kind of slip a little when I would pull the handle up. It would be strong then it felt like it slipped and was weak again. That only happened a couple of times and then from then on it has been really weak. Luckily pretty much everywhere I park is either flat or a light slope so it works fine to pull the parking brake and leave it in gear.

Anyone know what would cause that? I'm guessing that the parts in the drum for the parking brake are worn and it's slipping out of place after a short time, and that when I redid the brakes I put it back in the correct place but it's just not staying. But since I'm not really sure on that I figured I'd post this here and see if someone knows more about it and could point me in the right direction.

Thanks,

Noel

 

Try adjusting the start adjusters. I assume the rear shoes are now fully broken in and seated so they will need a little bit of adjusting now to bring them back out to almost touching the drums again. This should bring your ebrake handle back down to a more reasonable position like it was before it got 'weak'. My brother and I did rear brakes on his RX-4 and I had to readjust the star adjusters after the shoes had a chance to break in a little. The ebrake handle (and brake pedal) stayed decent for a long time after that.

 

I'll have to check that, but it seems like it's only a problem with the e-brake and not with the pedal. The pedal is still nice and firm, but the e-brake just barely engages. But I guess it could be the issue since the pedal is going to pretty much keep pushing until it engages fully, whereas the e-brake only has so far to engage before it just won't pull any further.

 

Not sure this is related - in which case apologies if this is jacking the thread!
My 80's handbrake does not really engage till w-a-a-a-a-ay up - like 60 degrees. I understand there is an adjustment screw/nut right at the handle, BUT: since 79-80 SAs have rear drums that need to be adjusted occasionally, is there anything that needs to be done back there first? Or am I OK just adjusting the handbrake itself? Brakes last adjusted some 14K miles ago-
Thanks
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Apparently the little crimps at the ends of the cabled can come off requiring either a quick fix crimp (search on the forum to learn how) or another cable. Let me know if you need any cables because I just switched mine to a set for disc brakes and don't need my drum cables anymore.

 

Stu, star adjusters first, then ebrake handle (remove one philips screw and you'll see a tall nut with a flat head slot on top, or you can crank it with a 10mm wrench). Don't get too into what you're doing because you can over tighten the cable and cause it to twist on itself like the PO did on my car. I had to swap out my front set of cables because he was a ham fisted retard, lol.

 

There's no star wheel adjusters back there on the 80's... Square-headed cam bolts with lock nuts, for each shoe, accessible from behind the back plate. Adjusting procedure in the FSM.

Star wheels only show up on auto-adjusting drum brakes. The 80 SA is pure manual adjustment.

 

Ok, that sounds like the GLC. I tried adjusting those drums and I'm not sure how well it worked.

 

there is a retaining clip on the drum brake shoe that connects to the e brake assembly. sounds like in your case, it might have come off

 

Thanks DD, Jeff - will (d-UH!) check out the FSM....


Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

Well, hopefully I'll get a chance to take a look at it tomorrow and see if it's the clip inside or if it just needs adjusted again. If not it will have to wait till next week, but that will be ok since the brakes work fine it's just an irritation that my e-brake just barely engages at the end of the handle pull. When I first redid the brakes I was really excited since it would have been the first car that I've owned that the e-brake really worked in, so it was a big disappointment when it went to crap on me. lol

P.S. Actually I take that back. I did own a 1990 Honda Civic and the e-brake worked in that (I know I said the H word, but I have to say that car took a serious thrashing and kept going, until I drove it under a Chevy Van, and even then it still ran, I just couldn't really drive it with a bend frame and the radiator wrapped around the exhaust manifold. lol)