Parking Brake Adjustment

[rnstein69]

Great write up, I adjusted my parking brake yesterday and it engages at about 4 to 5 clicks now, before was 9 or 10. One small note though, the little "sprocket" or gear that you have to turn with the screw driver has to be turned in the same direction on each side, which could be a little confusing. The one on the right side of the car has to turn "downwards" or left if you are looking at it from the back, and the left side has to turn "upwards" (this is also left) Edited December 22, 2010 by rnstein69

[julianfast]

Well, turns out toping off my brake fluid solved my brake light problem. I'm feeling a little silly about that, but apparently the brake fluid needs to be pretty darn close to full for the light to go off.

[d_jamont]

I replaced all m rotors and had a difficult time getting the LR rotor off. Even after I backed off the parking brake shoes down to "minimum" engagement. There was a ridge of rust that had formed, that was catching on the rotor as I used the M8 bolts in the center to pull the rotor off. By peaking inside I could see the Parking brake shoes were being pulled off/out as I removed the rotor. I was afraid of breaking it, so I took it to a garage and paid them $70 to change the rotor and fix the parking brake mechanism. The RR rotor came off nice and easy.

 

Don

[Max Capacity]

Check out page 4199 in the 2005 service manual for how to adjust the PB. It's PB-8 in the manual pages.

 

I finally got around to adjusting the wheels on the rear brakes, now my parking brake handle feels much better.

 

I back the car up on the ramps, popped out the plugs, turned the wheels 15 clicks and put the plugs back in, that was the hardest part, putting the plugs back in.

Edited September 3, 2011 by Max Capacity

[BMCracer]

Thread revival.

 

So I had my wheels off the other day to clean and polish them inside and out. Doing the wheel nuts up again, turns out the handbrake only works on the left rear wheel, the right side does nothing. So is this likely to be a case of the gimble wheel thing ( mentioned on first page of this thread ) being seized / something else, as I can't imagine the pads would be worn out on one side and not the other? This is on a totally standard 85,000 mile 3.0 R Spec B 5EAT wagon, I'm the third owner, it's been looked after by mature owners.

Edited January 11, 2018 by BMCracer
spelling

[1-3-2-4]

I've been so busy with my car and my wife and soon to be born daughter that a friend of mine pointed out my ebrake is too high.. looked in the manual and it states I think it's 5-7 click mine is like 15 or near 20.. So what should I be doing the adjustment under the center console or the rear cog? I changed the rear rotors about 5 months ago so I don't know.. the rear shoes were not low at the time I changed.

[Max Capacity]

You can adjust the nut on the e-brake and see if that helps. Worst case is you'll need to back that off what you did and then get under the car and pop those plugs out of the backing plate and adjust the star wheels.

[amason]

Great write up, I adjusted my parking brake yesterday and it engages at about 4 to 5 clicks now, before was 9 or 10. One small note though, the little "sprocket" or gear that you have to turn with the screw driver has to be turned in the same direction on each side, which could be a little confusing. The one on the right side of the car has to turn "downwards" or left if you are looking at it from the back, and the left side has to turn "upwards" (this is also left)

 

 

This is not correct, at least on my '05. The barrel adjuster on one side is reverse threaded, so you turn them both up (close side of the cog wheel / screwdriver tip) to tighten.