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Most people do not remove the rear rotors and inspect the Emergency Brake shoes. These often peel off the metal backing on the shoe and jam inside the interior Drum of the rotor. Some people will hear a rusty grinding noise after pulling away from a stop.
These brakes have the old "star-wheel" adjusters and may need to be adjusted more loosely to remove the rotor. Its a bad system in my opinion; the drum always rusts and corrodes and the Ebrake shoes are banana peel thin. With corrosion, the drum acts like a grinder and chews up the brake shoes. Some other configurations use a mechanical link on the caliper to make the service brakes act in an Emergency. It will override a hydraulic failure, but you still need good pads on the caliper.
Over here we call it a parking brake - hardly any of our cars are autos.
Parking brakes usually connect to the rear disc brake calipers but some manufacturers use a small drum brake in the disc centre for parking purposes due to the complexity of the caliper with integral parking brake.
When adjusting a parking brake it is important in most designs for the cable to be adjusted only to remove any free play without moving the caliper levers from the backstops and then if the parking brake lever or pedal travel is excessive it must be because of wear or other faults. Sometimes that basic requirement must be taken with a pinch or two of "experienced" salt...
Ford have a self adjusting parking brake I have experience of. A spring within the system preloads the cable eliminating all slack in the cable so the cable moves the caliper levers from the first. The main problem with the system is the preload spring is sometimes strong enough to overcome the resistance of the caliper spring and cause a binding brake. No manual adjustment was provided.
In that case I find fabricating and fitting brackets to anchor additional return springs to the calipers is a must.
Yes.....and no. Emergency brake should have been checked during brake pad replacement. Most do adjust to new pads...ie: return to factory adjustment setting due to new pads .
The E brake lever should be applying braking to the wheels after three clicks are heard during application of the Emergency brake.
Lift rear of car and apply emergency brake to the third click. Now both rear wheels should drag equally but not be locked up. . If not, adjustment required.
However, late model cars need a scanner to pull back the pistons and install pads.
89 regals are notorious for bad brake design. Especially rear disc brakes. The calipers get hung up, and you end up with premature brake pad/rotor wear. The parking brake, when applied, squeezes the caliper against the disc, hence keeping the car still. If the caliper is frozen, when you push the emergency brake, it can't squeeze the caliper anymore than it is. OR, the parking brake cable needs adjustment. Have a mechanic look over your rear brakes and parts.
brake seem to tighten when applied? out of adjustment? rear disk or drum brakes? if disk it might be built into the caliper like mine and the calipers can go bad so they wont set or is drums shoes worn or out of adjustment?
I just did mine today, and did not have this problem. I screwed the caliper back in (right side CCW, left side CW) using the autozone loaner tool. No problem once I figured out they were opposite. Did not touch the e-brake at all. They self adjusted as designed and everything works. You need to un-do the adjustment you made if you were able to reassemble.
The park/emerg. brakes should be integrated with the rear brake rotors. To replace them involves removing the calipers and brackets. You should be able to slide the rotors off. You may have to back the park brake shoes off with the shoe adjusters to remove the rotors due to the rust lip that often develops within, but they should slide off once freed. Hope this helps.
You can't remove the rotors because the emergency brake is tight on the
inside of the rotors. Make sure it's not engaged when you are working
on the rear brakes. Block the front tires for saftey. Then you have to
remove the rear calipers from the mounting brackets, there are two
bolts that hold the calipers on. Make sure you hang the calipers
securily with some wire so you don't damage the rubber brake line hose.
Then you need to adjust the emergency parking brake shoes in order to
remove the rotors. Theres a rubber plug on the backside of the rear
hubs, once you look at the back of the hub you'll see the plug. It's on
the top. Once you take out the plug, you need to use a screw driver to
turn the star spindel. You need to turn the star spindel
counter-clockwise in order to give yourself enough clearance to remove
the rotors. The beauty of this design is that ford incorporated a drum
and caliper system together, but it's difficult to take off the rotors
if the emergency brake shoes are to tight. The inside of the rotors
acts as the drums for the emergency brake system. I've done this and
it's not that hard, but, I did have to replace the emergency brake
shoes because they were worn out and the shoes fell off the metal
backing plates when I finally got the rotors to come off. They only
glued these shoes onto the backing plates, they don't rivet them so
take your time getting the rotors off or you can damage the emergency
brake shoes, but if you do they are cheap at napa. My service guide
says to install the new rotors, use a couple of lug nuts to hold it on,
then adjust the star spindal for the emergency brake all the way
clockwise until you can't turn it anymore, then you must back it off 8
clicks counter-clockwise. Make sure the emergency brake is not engaged
when you are doing this, the 8 clicks backwards compensates for when
you do engage the parking brake because the shoes expands outwards.
This adjustment sets the emergency brakes so they work properly. Once
the emergency brake is properly set you can't remove the rear rotors,
which is what your initial problem is. Then install the rubber plug
back in the hole, put on the new pads and calipers and you're good to
go.
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