Our 05 is having an issue with the parking brake I noticed the other day. I rarely drive it, my wife uses it as she parks on downtown streets so it is our "beater". Well the parking brake pulls quite high and requires you to manually lower it. A quick search says that it isn't adjustable but rather is self adjusting. Any ideas where to look first. Hoping to get to the 2 year brake fluid change in the next couple of weeks.

 

Trevor, from what you describe, I am 99% positive I know what your problem is. It is sounding like one of your e-brake levers is sticking. If you remove both back wheels, you will see that one lever is more towards the rear bumper than the other. The one that is more towards the rear bumper is the good caliper. You can take your thumb (or a screw driver) and push the bad caliper e-brake lever back towards the rear bumper. IT is not uncommon to have this lever get some corrosion where the lever meets the caliper. This will cause it to bind.

As for the fix, you have 2 options. The more obvious fix is to get a new caliper and install that. If you can do the work yourself, you are most likely looking at about $100 for a new caliper and another $40 for a set of rear pads (probably pretty thin due to the e-brake being stuck). Option #2 is to get yourself a rebuild kit and a 14mm pentasocket (a 5 point socket). Then you can rebuild the caliper yourself. You will still need the set of pads. The rebuild kit is made by Centric and runs about $15 on E-bay. The pentasocket is another $20 (pricey for a socket, but worth its weight in gold). It takes about an hour to rebuild the caliper. I have a post here where I do a step by step on rebuilding a caliper.

If you need more info, let me know.

 

Wouldn't it be likely that I would see evidence of extra brake dust and lower than normal mileage etc. I haven't noticed any of that. Haven't gotten to have a look, need to rebuild my clutch master in the TVR that died over the winter before I can get it out of the garage and other cars in, just trying to get some ideas prior to then. $100 for a stinking caliper, that is outrageous ftr

 

Trevor, it all depends on how fast that the caliper froze up on you. Yes, I would expect to see it affect the mileage some, but it doesn't affect it as bad as you would think. As for brake dust, that would be dependent on whether you have ceramic pads or not. The ceramics leave little dust behind.

If you need a quick fix, you simply can move the lever back to its proper location and then not pull on the e-brake till you can repair the caliper. If you find that you can't move the e-brake lever, then that would point you in the direction of a bad cable between the caliper and the e-brake lever.

 

Oh they are ceramic and they still put out dust, just not black dust. Will have to look into it, maybe I'll take it for a spin and then put a thermo on both to see which one is hotter.

 

Now why would you put me on both wheels to see which one is hotter? Sorry, had to. Granted, my name comes from a nickname that I picked up at work for what I do for a living.

 

If you need replacement parts I have both rear calipers as well as the e brake cables. Let me know.


Good luck,
The Dr!

 

Thanks Dr. Dome, will let you know what I find but I'm more confused then ever. Today I pulled the cable down after a good pull up and had a free drift down the slight incline on the driveway which leads me to believe (without remembering what the ebrake mech. looks like that it isn't a caliper issue) What color interior/ext of of your 04 and would it happen to have heated front seats if it is black inside and in very good shape.

 

i have sort of the opposite problem in that when applying the brake lever, there is tension on the cable, but the brake doesn't seem to "closing". three clicks of the handle and the cable is tight. just had new pads put on, but the problem was present beforehand.

when you are talking about the caliper, are you referencing the main caliper for the service brakes, or does the handbrake have its own caliper?

 

liquid, the e-brake actually actuates the normal piston in the rear calipers. The difference between normal braking and the e-brake is that during normal braking, fluid is pumped into the caliper, forcing the piston out and squeezing the pads against the rotor. For the e-brake, you are pulling a lever which then through a "gear mechanism" (use this term lightly), that is what pushes on the back of the piston, again, forcing the pads against the rotor.

So, in your case, you may have a situation where the e-brake levers are frozen in place and when you go to apply the e-brake, you can not make the levers move and the tension you are feeling is the cable trying to pull on the levers and them not moving. Which would then also result in the e-brakes not holding the car. This can be easily proven by removing a single wheel and noting the position of the e-brake lever. If you apply and remove the e-brake, you should see the e-brake lever move. You can also use a screw driver and move the lever that way too should you so desire.

 

so the rebuild kit will work in this instance as well? im about ready to just hammer on it to unbind the f...er

 

liquid, yes, the rebuild kit will work. What you will also want is a scotch-brite pad (greenie). When you dismantle the caliper, the shaft that the e-brake lever attaches to will most likely be all corroded up. Use the scotch-brite pad to clean up everything (make sure to get the hole in the caliper too). Then, when you reassemble everything, make sure to put some high temp grease on the area where you found the corrosion. Also pack the area under the rubber boot between the e-brake lever and caliper body too. This will help keep air and water out of the area that corroded really bad.

If you do some looking, I have pics for a step by step of what you need to do on this site. I seem to remember the title of the post was "E-brake lever fix +1".