Hi all

I upgraded this year from old and defective Delcos to PBRs. I bought the Kit from Ed Miller who is known here.

My issue is with the parking brake cables. If the parking brake lever is fully down the cable unhook itself at the calipers if I do it like the manual states.
If I tighten the lock nut at the equalizer (lever fully down) until it's not possible anymore that the cables fall of the levers at the calipers the parking brake lever is too tight. You barely reach 3-4 clicks with it!

Something is really wrong but I don't know what. Any help or ideas? How many clicks should it go up until it should "theoretically" hold the wheels?

 

I meassured one of the cable and it was 145cm (1450mm) long. It this really to long maybe? It would not be the first time that I receive the wrong parts from Ed. So maybe someone knows the correct length of them?

 

Not super sure how to interpret what you're saying as i never had the manual.

I know the 91-92 cars had a self-adjusting parking brake, while the 82-89 cars had an adjustable one. If your brakes came from a 91-92 car then you have the wrong parking brake lever. I dont know about 1990, though. Not sure which they were, but I want to say they were the self-adjusting style.

For my car I had to take my self-adjusting brake off and go to a manuall adjustable one and I just set it to where it didnt drag when down and stopped the car when it was up. Just where it worked. But perhaps this is the setup you're referring to a factory manual for, and if your brakes are from a newer car that may explain the issue.

Im not sure if that's relevant to you ,but maybe you can get enough out of it to figure out your problem.

But like I said, I just tightened it up til it grabbed when the lever was up and didnt grab when the lever was down. I dont know what the proper method is so I cant really relate what I did to what you were describing.

 

Can it be that you're missing the bracket that holds the cable to the caliper.

Check pics in the following link:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/faq-...iscs-89-a.html

JamesC

 

Thanks for the answers so far. Just forgot to explain my setupL
- TransAm GTA 350 with full setup from Ed Miller: C4 fronts and PBR rears on a 9-bolt.
The car had the disc brake option so I already had discs in the rear so I think the hand brake lever is correct for the PBR's I have.

@ James
Yes, the calipers are complete and the cable housing securly locks to the bracket. However the cable itself which is going to the lever engaging the parking brake on the caliper will fall of if I do not tighten enough the lock nut on the equalizer bar in the tunnel. The weird thing is that if I tighten it enough to securely hold the cables in place (but not engaging the parking brake) the parking brake is so hard to use I can barely get 4 clicks out of it and you need arms like Hulk to activate it.

I just checked the documentation/forums and there is this allen screw on the caliper which is adjusting the angle of the parking brake mechanism. I just check it and maybe found the problem. There is almost no play in the mechanism. Moving the lever at the caliper result in maybe 2mm of play and then it already pushes the pad tight to the disc and locking the wheel.

Shouldn't it have more travel on this lever, say 6-7mm until the mechanism will push the brake pad to the disc? With that less travel I think I will not have enough travel for the hand brake lever because everything is to tight? Could that be the issue? I tried it on the passenger side and if turn this screw I will have much more travel but I simply don't know if more travel is correct for this style of caliper.

Oh dear I wish I had ordered the newer style brakes with the drum brake parking brake. My other cars are using this system or a far better mechanical mechanism than this thing. I know it's just a parking brake and not a real e-brake but It has to securely lock the car in place otherwise it will fail the inspection. It even has to pass the in gear test where they park it on a 15% steep hill and put it in Gear. It has to stay in place otherwise you will fail.... This was also always the hardest part for my Voyager or Durango.... But their mechanism will be activated via foot pedal and there you don't recognize it if the pedal is a little bit harder to use.... with the hand brake lever in the TransAm you will loose... My wife is strong but she was not able to engage it in the TransAm...

Does someone have the adjusting procedure for PBR calipers?

 

E-brake handle has nothing to do with whether it had discs or not and everything to do with what year the car is. They changed the design in 90 or 91. I specifically had to change mine over to the older style because I had PBR calipers from 1989.

But now Im wondering if the cables themselves were a different length. You talk about adjusting the bar so you clearly have the adjustable type. If I remember right I got my whole rear axle with the brakes and e-brake cables still attached. But cable length shouldnt really make a difference here... Do you have the cable ends lock all the way into the brackets?

BTW, my PBR e-brake works fantastic. It holds the car in place just fine, I have a manual transmission car and I NEED a functional e-brake, and that's one of the reasons I went with the PBR's. You wont have any problem with it once you figure it out. Remember, these are FACTORY OEM parts and they WILL work as the factory designed them. Even if you have to source new parts for some things in it, the parts are out there, they exist, and they're not super uncommon because they are FACTORY OEM parts. So don't fret too much. Guys who, for example, switch the LS1 rear brakes have to fabricate a mount to get theirs to work, guys who get aftermarket rear brakes dont always even have e-brakes. So dont fret too much, it's a solvable problem.

 

Interested to hear the correction here... I am putting in a 9 bolt with PBR's as soon as the underbody is done.

 

I assume that the cables are locked in place on the underbody as well as the calipers.

JamesC

 

Yes, they are. How many clicks do you get with your hand brake lever? How much free-travel do you have on the parking brake actuator? I found a manual which states 0,61 to 0,71mm. Thjis therefore tolds me that my calipers were setup correctly. Almost no free-travel is correct.

But then this also means that there is only a small amount of cable movement in the whole system, correct? Does someone have a pic of the hand brake lever rotating mechanism inside the car? Maybe something is wrong there? When the cables are not connected to the calipers the cables and lever are going smooth an all the way up. Therefore I think it should be ok...

 

This is how high mine goes. I could take it a little farther but it just isnt necessary. It holds fine.



I dont think it would matter but it would depend... Do you have the cables routed properly? Through the factory guides and notches?

 

Wow, no way I can do it on mine. Maybe I have to unbolt the mechanism in the car and check it. Does it have something like a leverage ratio? Or is it 1:1?

 

How did this turn out?

 

It really has to do with the small hex screws on the calipers. By adjusting them I was able to get back 7 clicks instead just 3 as before. But still It will not hold the car really well and I can only get it to 7-8 clicks with MASSIVE muscle power. I have inspection end of april and I have to figure out how to make that car hold in an incline.

So far I'm not really happy with the PBR brakes I've ordered from Ed Miller. I should have go with some willwoods or SSBC. I barely can bring the car to a fast stop. It needs a really heavy foot to stop it and locking up is almost impossible.

 

I upgraded to the PBR brakes around 2 years ago, I remember there are different lengths of parking brakes cables.

On my 91 the P brake is self adjusting, I think by applying the brake pedal I had to pull the P brake 2 times and it was set. If somehow the p brake lever feels loose after some work on the car I just repeat this procedure.

Here are some pics that maybe help https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/brak...m-o-e-j65.html

I would look in to the P brake lever adjuster procedure and cables length for now.

 

When these cars were new, the Parking lever didn't pull up very far.
Over the years the cables stretch, parts wear out, lack of maintenance (cable adjustment), and that =s the lever pulling up farther. There is a certain range of operation for the lever to compensate for those things. That's why you see the parking lever sticking strait up on older/high mile cars.
Put all new parts on your car and the lever shouldn't pull up far. It doesn't matter how far anyway, as long as the P brake works.
I for one, don't like looking in the cars an seeing it look like a 12yr old boy in the morning. It just looks goofy to me for some reason.

The "newer" more complex rear PBR brakes you speak of are heavier, have p-brake pad drag and pad breaking problems (just like they did on the old 70s corvettes).
I'm not a fan of them.

 

@ Thomas
You already have the newer parking brake lever line. Mine is the old one with the adjusting in the tunnel. Cable length is good.

@ TTop
I'm too not a fan of parking/e-brakes that will hold in the last possible travel area of the lever. We in Switzerland are even not allowed to have it like that. Our brakes must hold within the first 6-7 clicks (e-brakess). I have to look up how it is for parking brakes. The issue is these cars are not really known that good here. We only have idiots from VW/Audi garages which will work at the inspection station (at least here in Basel). I always have trouble with them and now I have to explain them that this is a parking brake and not an e-brake :-) More tolerance is allowed for parking brakes which will maybe rescue my *** in this situation.

The issue in my initial post was that I only was able to pull it barely 3 clicks and the parking brake was not working at all. I'm a strong guy but I just managed it to get it clicking 3 clicks and way maybe pulling with 130 kg on that lever.

I was able to adjust the hex screws in the calipers a bit which gave me a little bit more play for the lever which also allowed me to put the cables under slight stress so that the hooks do not fall of the levers at the calipers. I tried it to do it like in the manual described but maybe I just don't understand it as I'm a german speaking guy or it just simply doesn't work :-)

 

Personally never worked on an pre 89 rear disc thirdgen, But if it is the adjustable one than it looks easy to adjust, sounds like the issue is not cable length related.

The PBR system does not require a lot of force to prevent the car from moving at idle in D or on a slope. As you are pointing out, something must be wrong if the lever does not move with normal force.

Supposing you verified for all physical interferences and that the P hand lever by itself works, the issue must be the p brake linkage on the caliper.

Could you post a pic of it?

(You are allowed to legally upgrade or install any factory O.E. option available for your car in its production year, to do so you need to ask and buy the attestation from the GM swiss representative, after that you pass a special identification/technical inspection with all documents and documentation and they write it in the car license)

 

No, nothing wrong with the lever in the car or on the calipers or even the cables. They are all working as expected if not hooked up together.

The small hex screws (Madenschraube) in the calipers are adjusting the "freeplay" and angle on how the lever mechanism are putting force to the brake pad. On my calipers there was No, no even a nanometer play in the levers. Because of that you don't have any travel on the hand brake lever or only if you are hulk and manage to stretch the cables ;-) With adjusting this hex screws in the calipers I was able to adjust them.

I followed the guides I found here in the forums for PBR rear calipers.

My brakes just have 200km of driving. I think they still have to settle in as the rear brakes are not used that heavy.

I know the procedure about the OE parts as I had done that many times but even then the guys here in Basel are dumb. They once really said that there was never a 4-speed Auto in that year Firebird etc. So they don't have any clue about this car or even domestic ones like Alfa Romeo etc which I do have too at home.

As my car is a so called "typenschein X" and they forgot to add things like horspower, brake types etc. in the 13.20A form 25years ago I will not do this. The brakes are stock, a stock option but stock.

Next thing is to build a 350cui HP monster because of the missing horsepower entry in my papers :-)

 

I put a 89 9 bolt PBR rear under my 92 Z vert and I bought 92 4 wheel disc e brake cables. I think the PBR calipers all take the same type connection at the caliper. I think I remember the difference being at the cable coming from inside the car and especially the Y connection at the end of the trans tunnel. My 92 style cables hooked up at both ends like they were supposed to and I took up the slack at the Y by the end of the driveshaft by tightening the adjustor nut (1/2 inch I think) and all was well. I remember the 89 had a different connection than the 90-92.

 

firefox7518, sounds like you figured it out, I know what you are talking about, the #23 small allen screw.

I never hat to deal with that screw, I'm curious, by turning it clockwise does the caliper grip harder to the disc?

 

I can't remember it anymore but it's a feeling thing. If you turn it one side it will be harder to press the lever until 0 travel at all regardless of power you invest to move it. If you turn it to the other side you will have more and more travel but you have to be careful as this changes also the angle (as far as I understand) how the pad is clamping to the disc.

On one of my calipers they secure it with some thread secure stuff. I was no table to turn it. I broke all my wrenches when trying to turn it I had to remove them and drill a small hole through it and pulled it out without damaging the threads :-) I also had luck and I had a suitable screw at home from one of my Tamya RC cars, haha. Funny thing and big luck of course. Otherwise I would have used a normal screw.

 

It might be helpful if someone would look at the parking brake handle and see if It or the linkage was changed for different cars and brakes or has optional attachments points that would change the mechanical advantage.

 

When I did my pbr change over last spring, I had what sounds like the same sort of problem. I adjusted the e-brake adjuster in the tunnel and the e-brake worked great but when I would release it the cables would come out of the mounting point at the caliper, like you I changed the adjustments but then I wasn't happy with way the brake worked. I checked all the adjustments both in the tunnel and at the calipers and finally took a heavy black zip tie and used it to hold the cable in the position that when the e-brake was released it would not allow the cable ends to come out of the bracket, works great and there is no binding or worry of the zip tie rubbing against anything to wear or break it. The factory brackets to hold the cables in place are there and they just didn't quite do the whole job in holding the cables from coming loose from the caliper no matter how I changed the adjustments. I don't know if this what you are dealing with or if you understand what I am talking about without a pic to show you what I did which I can do tomorrow when I go out to my garage and take a pic.

 

CC,

Did you use the first-design 1434mm cable?

JamesC

 

Hi James, I used the first design, I remember when I had that very question last year and you explained to me about how tell which cable to use based on what year my car is and the cables are perfect in the length, I just couldn't keep them in place at the caliper when released no matter how I made adjustments either at the tunnel or the at the calipers. The way the cables looped around and through the brackets still wouldn't keep the ends in place. Your posts on this conversion was priceless for me and my conversion worked great right from the moment I was done. I did the 4th gen master cylinder with a new 3rd gen booster, new lines from front to back from the Right Stuff, I also used new silicone fluid since everything was new, and a lot of components came from Ed Miller who was also instrumental with the conversion. You really know your stuff.

 

HI CC

Exactly the same thing on my end too. The issue is I can't use zip ties to hold them in place. The inspection guys would not accept that and let me fail with it. I want to do that when I passed inspection (hopefully). They just have to work as good as possible for inspection so that the car passes and then I will adjust them for how I will personally want it to :-) I asked Ed 3 or 4 times and he always said that the cable length is correct. I have to believe him and also think that the length is not the issue. As mentioned above if the the small levers on the calipers do not have any little travel the lever in the car does not have any travel too. There is nothing in between which could stretch unless you are Hulk or superman. That's why I adjusted this small screws on the calipers but I don't know if I changed with that the clamping power of the mechanism. It just pushes on one side of the brake pad and not centrally. I'm not familiar with this design. I will adjust them until I'm able to stop the wheels on the lift when in Gear. They have to stop otherwise I surely fail on inspection. The car has to hold on a steep incline and IN gear. Always really hard to pass here.

Does someone know if the lever in the car could have different leveraging ratios? I could imagine that for this caliper design you have to use normally a different lever. In my Dodge Nitro I had such a thing with a spring in it which pulls on the cable to have them always pre loaded enough to not have slack in the cables.

 

I used the original lever in my 85 without issue.

JamesC

 

I will agree with Ed, cables are right length and mine would stay in for one or two pulls but would work out. Thinking out of the box, could you use some fine wire to wrap around at the cable end where it is held in place? Do you think you could get away with that? I really don't see what the problem would be with using the zip ties since they are not holding anything other than just keeping the cable in the correct position so the end will not come out and the fact that is not a moving part of the cable. I used a pair of really heavy ties that are really overkill but hey, it works, I have an e-brake that works perfectly and releases as it should. I guess some inspectors don't believe in the grey area where as long as it works as intended what's the harm. Hope you can figure out a temp solution for your problem.

 

Like you, I used the original lever that came on my 82 along with original cable from the lever to the where the cables from the rear brakes fasten to at the adjuster. Mine would stay in for a few times but seemed that just vibration from diving and they would fall out. I moved the adjuster at the brake itself a few times tying to take up any excess slack but I just couldn't get the problem fixed, so then I tried the tie wrap to hold the cable better and has been fine since. I will have to go out and take pic and post it here for you to see. Seems like there should be something else to hold the cable in place since the brackets have necessary holes in them but I don't really know so this what worked for me.

 

@ CC

In switzerland car inspection is ultra hardcore strict. Especially when you are driving cars which they don't know. As I said most guys are fired VW/AUDI/Skoda mechanics and my experience after 18 years and 20cars dealing with them is bad, really bad. When we showed them our "frame of" rebuilt 1966 Ford Mustang with the 289 and 4-Gear manual they treated us like **** and didn't want to accept that this car has a manual box. These guys really believed US cars only have autos!!! It took us a lot of documentation and proof that this car has an offical manual box.

So that's why the brake has to work as perfect as possible. Everything which just looks not normal they will let me fail. Tomorrow I have my noise measurement appointment to measure my Magnaflow Catback system. I had to use silencers in the 3,5" tail pipes to get down to 75dB. More is not allowed in Switzerland when passing at 50km/h. Costs me 480 bucks to measure that and If a fail I have to do it again and pay again 480bucks :-( But be assure If I pass the measurement and the inspection, first thing to remove are the silencers, haha :-)

 

Wow! Feel bad for those of you there, I thought it was bad here some states but, I guess it can always be worse. I hope you can get it fixed right. Is your setup like that which I posted in the pics? Good luck.

 

Guess what, the only thing which is not ok for inspection is the parking brake! 2 mechanic shops have worked on it and me too but we are NOT able to stop the car from moving in a steep incline like the 18% one at the inspection. I had the 11,6" rotors on it and we now tried also the 12" rotors in the back hoping we have enough friction to hold the car.

All garages have adjusted the free travel as per manual to less than 1mm. But then without any free travel there is also no travel in the parking brake lever! That of course makes sense as there is nothing in between the lever in the car and the lever on the caliper which should stretch.

Because no one is able to make it the inspection guy already thinks that this is the wrong brake system for the car and I now have to bring him evidence that this system was available on this car. @ Thomas, do you have a document/paper for that laying around if you also needed something like this?

So what else could be the issue? Is tha parking brake lever inside the car different for 1LE/PBR calipers? If I look to other systems then the calbes are sometimes not directly attached to the lever they are sometimes using a drum mechansim which therefore let's the lever travel more. I think if I could move the lever to the 7th oder 8th click before it completly grabs then the travel could be enough to have enough force on the levers on the calipers. At the moment I can only reach 2-3 clicks and the brake is applied. Be assured that the wheels are turning completly freely, there is no drag on the brakes but if we set the free travel to spec there is no more movement possible.

So please help me, let the ideas flow... We are open for everything but changing back to the J65 crap brakes ;-) At least they did hold in the incline but were ratteling like if you are towing a coke can behind your car during driving.

 

Your inspectors sound like real *******s. Post some pics of your set-up... good ones.

 

I can't. The car is in the shop and not at home :-( Since 6 weeks just for this stupid issue....... But something I just saw was the pic that Thomas had attached to one of his posts. There they talk about 1.5-3.1mm of free travel. In the manual i have the talk about 0.71mm:


That's a significant difference because that 3mm is at the beginning of the lever and at the end that could be 8-10mm on the end of the lever! Why this difference if the calipers are identical? I think it really has to do with the lever in the car....

I will check that with the guys in the shop. If 3mm is ok to have as free travel then I will use it of course to have enough slack to pull the lever way more up than just 2-3 clicks. And this then maybe gives enough mechanical advantage and force to the parking brake mechanism.... hopefully....

 

Need to buy the attestation from the GM swiss representative. The attestation is composed of 3 pages pages.
Page 1, invoice
Page 2, owner, brand, vin, one sentence saying the system was available as option and it should be ok to add/modify to the car.
Page 3, a copy chart of various dimensions of the factory discs, caliper make (PBR), piston D, ... NO PICTURES.

The parking brake has no problem holding the car still on the test slope.
However, it was impossible to pass the identification inspection with only the attestation of GM representative. I printed 3 pages of the user manual and 2 exploded views from internet suppliers, colored the concerned parts with a marker and added it the the official attestation. That worked.

What is happening with your parking brake is terrible.

One thing I noticed is the cables from Dorman work better without the spring they come with.

 

I've ordered beginning last week the attestation. I had to order it at vdocs.eu as GM Switzzerland will not do it. It will cost me €135.-- plus shipper but it takes up to 3 weeks until I got it. Next week is my deadline to solve the issue and show the car to the inspections will end and then I have to pay for everything again.... An additional 300.-- :-(

Meanwhile I've also talked to Corvette mechanics here. They all say the same, the PBR calipers are sometimes bitches to get working for swiss laws, especially to be in inline with all of them (holding car IN gear at 18°C incline forwards/backwards and the max lever force should not exceed 17kg or so) They always have the same issue like me. Some inspections stations are maybe easy about that and let the car pass if it hold in neutral in the slope but my inspections station is stupid strict and you have to get the approval to show the car in an other canton from the inspection station and they can deny it! It happend to me already.....

Thanks Thomas for the pics. I've already give them some detail pictures and give them the Haynes repair manual with them as there the 1LE system has been also mentioned as "dual piston caliper" etc. with pics. My Garage will try it again next week with this information. As the RPO sticker is missing on my car no one, not even GM, knows if the car was build with it or not.

I've also sent them the pic you added in one of your posts as there the free travel meassurements are completly different to the one I have found. This 1.5-3.1mm of free travel could solve a lot of issues. I've always set it up to 1mm as I did not have feeler gauages to meassure it more precise. 3mm is 3x more travel in the end. This could explain why I only can pull for 2-3 clicks before everything is to tight to pull. 3x more pull and maybe a better lever advantage will be enough to stopp the car. We will see.

Did they also mention the dimensions of the discs in the attestation or just the calipers? I now have installed 12" discs in the back and I'm really pissed to change back to the 11,6" as it is a waste of money in my end.

 

Dynamic Test Center, used to be GM swiss tech representative. Yes, dimensions of the factory discs are written.
My parking brake has no problem holding the car still on the test slope.

 

@ Thomas

I now get 8clicks until the brakehandle is firm and you can't move it. The car does not move when in gear and at idle. However, as soon as there is just an increase of 220rpms the car will move. In a 15% incline the car will hold as long as there is NO gear engaged. As soon as you shift in R or D the car will move.

Is this the same for your car? How many clicks does your car require until it holds?

 

There is no need to pull the E-brake handle strait up position. When these cars were new and things were tight and adjusted properly, the handle didn't come up far at all. If yours does, you need to tighten the brake cables with the adjustment or the cables have stretched or pads/rotors are worn or???

 

Read my posts. Everything is new. Spent 2500 Bucks for brand new parts. Even the cable going into the car to the lever is new. So there IS NO stretched parts or worn out parts.

I never said I can pull up the handle to the sky.

I said I reach 8 clicks this however with pulling like a bull on it. However it WILL NOT HOLD the car when in gear and on a 18 incline. Does your car do that? Yes or no? And I really mean 15-18% not the average parking lot incline. It has to hold in a 18% steep hill road fully loaded to the max of the max loading of the car. This is swiss/europe laws. It has to hold and I doubt that it can do that.

I can imagine why they later never produced such a crap anymore and they used a drum-style parking brake in the rotor for modern cars. Even the C4 guys are complaining and you'll find a lot of community posts about it with the same story like mine.

I can adjust it to just reach 4 clicks but it still will not hold the car so what do I win doing that?

Like I said, it's fine on an even road and in gear (idle) the car will not move.

I just tried today to bias the brake power more to the rear. It now overbrakes at the rear and the car will slide sideways but I just wanted to know If more brake pressure at the rear will maybe help to lock the brake pad in place. It's helping a little, the car holds on a 20% hill and will not move as long as the car is not in gear or fully loaded.
Also the overbraking proves the calipers are working 100% perfectly as I see two bold black rubber tracks :-) I now have to reduce the rear bias until it does not overbrake but still will prevent the rear tires to spin when the brakes are applied on a lift.

 

I did read your post. My reply post contained info for you and other posts in here.
Sorry you are having a problem with your setup...
I like this PBR setup better than the LS rear brakes because its lighter and the drum e-brake pad fails on the LS PBRs, a lot. The pad material just cracks and falls off.

Like I said, with new parts, you shouldn't have or need to pull the lever very far.

What pad compound are you using? Some cheapy aftermarkets don't work well at all. Some compounds don't work when cold.

 

Thanks for that but I need someone answering my questions as asked. Do your cars with PBR brakes hold in a 18% incline fully loaded, yes or no?

I don't need guessing I need facts. I've read so many posts in other forums about the same issues, even Ford GT40 guys have the same issues as some of them have PBR calipers too on their cars and ALL of them have the same issue. The car will not hold enough to pass a professional inspection.

I have other cars and they will hold and have a similar systems like the PBR. My Alfa 75 (Milano in the US) has also rear discs with mechanical clamping mechanism. I'm working on cars almost 20 years now and this is the first time we we are not able (not even professional mechanic shops!) to solve the issues. Normally I never bring a car to shops as I do it at home by myself but I was running out of time. My last date is Wednesday 9th July. If I can't solve the issue until then I'm not allowed to drive the car anymore and I have to take it from the road. I want to avoid that and that's the reason I have to ask so direct, maybe rude, sorry for that.

It's a lot of money I have invested and It was the first time I invested money in OEM parts because I thought they should work without issues. They do, they break perfectly. I'm able to lock the front tires at 80km/h which was not possible with the old J65 brakes. Also the rears are working perfectly when applied via hydraulic system. As I pointed out I'm able to easily lock the rear when I used a stiffer spring in the prop valve. This, for me, proofs that the rear calipers are working.

I'm already on my 3rd set of brake pads. First I used the pads Ed Miller has supplied with the calipers. With them I was not even able to lock the front tires nor was the parking brake holding the car in idle. Then I just ordred from Rockauto.com a set from Raybestos. Was a lot better but the parking brake was still not holding. Now I'm using the Semi Metalic ones from Brakeperformance.com. And thats a total difference now. The fronts are locking up when I want it to and the parking brake is holding the car when at idle and also out of gear in a 15% slope but only when I'm alone and not in gear. Ah and we also already tried bigger rotors on the back without luck. I think they were 11,8" instead 11,6".

As you maybe will see we already tried a lot. We also tested the mechanism at the calipers and the levers are working as expected. They work easily and without any resistance when taking of the spring. We set up the free-travel to 2,5mm. According to manual 1,5 - 3,1mm are allowed.
We also checked again that the brake pads are not glazed. They aren't. The wear pattern on the disc also looks normal. No grinds or whatsoever.

When I set the parking brake I fully depress the brake pedal to build up as much pressure as possible and then I pull the lever until I'm not able to pull it anymore. Thats now between 7-8 clicks.

I drove 100km today to be sure the pads have been setting.....

Running out of ideas now.....

 

Never tried, never will.
Never loaded my car to its capacity, never will.
Never parked on a incline.
Never had a problem with the E-brake holding, don't really use it either. Other than to test it once in awhile.

Will my cars over power the E-brake? Yes, any car can over power their E-brake.

Guess I'm out of ideas also, Good luck to you.

 

No, All my cars are not able to overpower the e-brake. Not even with 450PS and 600nm. Maybe it's just because it's a german car :rollingeyes: No wait, even my 30 year old italian racer is not able to over power it even with 280PS.... hmmm something must be wrong ;-)

I need some arguments to discuss that with our inspection guys. If you can tell me that the car will never hold in gear (idle) in an incline then I have something to discuss with them. I then also know that I can not do any thing more to make it better on my end and I'm wasting time trying to solve something which can not be better.

But if you are not willing to help here than please leave this thread alone. Whatever we discuss here could help a lot of other peoples out there in the world. As I said I'm not the only one with these issues. A quick google will tell you the same.

Just for further information: The parking brake lever in the car has been also removed and serviced to ensure that it will work properly. Sadly there is no other attaching point. So there is only one position where you can hook up the cable going down to the equalizer bar.

 

The 2 Ford GTs I did a lot of work on could blow through the E-brake with no probs.

I have played with the Ebrake back in the day on inclines at stop lights. Did I measure the angle? no, but it was under a train overpass so it was fairly steep, it would hold that in gear and actually was trying to pull up the hill.
One thing that comes to mind is the tq converter. You could "cheat" the test by putting a higher stall converter in the car. (like from a V6 s10/vette)
That will take away some of the crazy low rpm pulling a stock converter has.

 

Thanks for the information. Of course you're right there are cars which easily can over power their brakes. I also manage it to do it when using the ALS system on my turbo car during racing starts.

Can I lower the idle rpm somehow or will the IAC always raise it again to its spec? That's maybe also a way to "tweak" it. 550-600rpms maybe?

How long do you expect will it take to settle the brake pads to the disc? I already drove 200-300km. I think this should be enough, right?

 

What does the car idle at now? All my 89 350s idle at 550-600 from the factory

 

Not sure the exact amount of clicks, but max brake power is around 1/2-3/4 of the travel on mine. If I pull like crazy I can pull it up to max but braking power does not increase.

My hand brake did hold the car still on the test slope with 2 adults and a full fuel tank, with the transmission in neutral, that is probably the best it can do. It also holds the car still in D on an even surface, up to how many rpm I do not really know, will try next time I drive it.

I actually have rear PBR calipers from the early LT1's, the e-brake linkage looks better than the 89-92 linkage. Do you have pics of your calipers?

I feel sorry for you, best is you inspect it by your self, I highly doubt the mechanics will be able to figure it out. Personally I do not even let them fill up the washer fluid on these cars.

Could try to roughen up the disc surface and the pad with some medium sand paper, see if that makes up just enough to pass the test.

 

Thanks a lot Thomas. Then the brakes are acting like yours. I'm a big guy and are counting for two people ;-) A full tank and myself in the car and it is holding in a 20% hill. But it's really really close to not hold.

Yeah, I already tried sand paper. I do that everytime when I change out the pads to reapply a good surface to the disc. At least the brakes are working as good as they can..... I will try to twak them a little bit more.

 

Can go really rough on the disc if it has to be. On cars with RPO 1LE braking system you are also allowed to use drilled rotors an all 4 corners, if that helps.