996 parking brake hard to pull

[quasio]

Hi Guys,

On the 996, I've adjusted my parking brake so that in 3-4 clicks it'll lock the wheels. Followed all the manual instructions on doing it. However now i'm finding it really heavy/ a lot of effort to get to the 3-4 clicks. So much so the wife doesn't have the strength to wrench it up to the 4th click. 

Is this normal on a 996 or do you think i need new brake shoes? or have i done something wrong with the adjustment.

 

[Stephen Tinker]

I assume you adjusted the brake by using the knurled headed screw in the rear brake caliper housing - yes? And it was working OK before you adjusted the shoes?

Maybe you over adjusted one side slightly too much and the shoe is dragging on the drum..... Can you turn each wheel without it rubbing - you can hear an over adjusted brake shoe touching the drum face.  

I usually adjust each shoe so that it just touches the inner drum and then back it off so that I can't hear it rubbing when you turn the wheel hub. Then adjust the second brake shoe.

IIRC there was more than 3 clicks on the handle before the wheels locked.

[quasio]

yeah i used both sides to adjust, the knurled screw and the cable side.

Adjusted it such that on the 3rd click i couldn't move the wheel on both sides, and didn't feel any resistance on 0 click.

 

Previously before adjustment, wasn't heavy at all, but on the 5th-6th click it still wouldn't hold on my driveway, (could hear it dragging but wasn't stopping the car at all) which is relatively steep. (it felt like normal previous cars handbrake)

Now it holds on the 4th click (which is bloody hard to engage), the 3rd click it holds pretty well but still slowly goes down (difficult but not impossible to engage, however very hard for my wife to engage).

 

 

[Stephen Tinker]

OK, before adjusting the wheel adjusters, did you slacken off the tension of the cable from inside the car?

If you lift the centre console hinged bin, remove the rubber insert, then torx head screws hold a plastic cover under which there is a large U shaped adjuster with 2 x nuts ( 1 is a locking nut). You must loosen these 2 x nuts before adjusting the rear wheel adjusters.

It sounds like you adjusted at the wheels before loosening the cable inside the car..... 

[quasio]

Hi Stephen, thanks for the responses.

I believe i did loosen it as well and retighten later, but from my memory, i may have done the wheels first, then loosened and re-tightened up the cable nuts a little more to get the 3 clicks, Coz i seem to remember not getting those nut's loosened until later.

Think i might give the procedure another go, i do remember playing with the knurled nut a lot, to get the wheels locked and then back it off, and it seemed i had to turn it a fair bit for anything to be locked. 

Anyway seems i may not have done it right in the end, will try it again.

 

 

 

[quasio]

ok so i just gave this a go, spent the whole evening adjusting and readjusting. Replaced brake shoes, and still no go.

And actually even harder to crank it up to get it to stick on a 5-10% grade hill (no idea, but relatively steep driveway, nothing crazy though).

I noticed the brake discs itself are pretty old with a fair bit of corrosion, do you think the inner surface is buggered as well? (this is a UK import)

Should i try replacing those too?

(now that i know how to do it, it's pretty easy)

 

[quasio]

closing the loop on this..

There was a groove in the old discs i didn't notice, until i decided to run my finger along it. and also the old pads had deteriorated heavily. 

 

Replaced the rears with brembo discs, shoes and akebono brake pads, and heaps better.  It's still not japanese/bmw easy, but a ton better.

Shout out for design911 and fcp euro for getting me good brand parts in 4 days at less than 1/2 the price of aussie resellers.

love it!