I did the pbr swap on my 85 Z a few years back and the ebrake never held great, but now it barely works at all. It was the kit from flynbye that came with new cables and everything. I've tried adjusting the Allen set screw in and it seemed to help a little. The lever has good pressure half way up but still isn't holding. What else should I check? I'm out of ideas.

 

There is a cable adjuster bracket up under the car in the tunnel above the driveshaft. Basically you turn the nut on the threaded rod clockwise to take the slack out of the cables.

 

There are also 2 different sized e-brake cables. You're not alone on this problem. search around here, its been discussed before.

 

It is adjusted in the tunnel. The lever has full pressure at just over half way up right where it should and it doesn't hold the car at all.

 

The design of the Parking-Brake System implemented on the rear PBR calipers is far from ideal...
I will say that the PBR System is leaps and bounds better than the System used on the Earlier Delco-Moraine calipers.
Especially when they do not function at all... and need the "Recall" service-kit installed.

Take some photos of the calipers with the Parking-Brake being applied...
Post the images here; so we can see the levers on the calipers moving, and the pushing of the Brake-Pad against the Rotor.
The way that these Levers ****/ push the Brake-Pad against the Rotor...
requires very good contact in a very small area of the Brake-Rotor, in order to hold in place.

 

Did you change the E-brake handle to the newer style or are you using the 85 parts?

 

Yeah it has the moraines on it and they were frozen so I just did this instead for the bigger rotors. The levers move. I adjusted it on the stands so the pads just drag ever so slightly when disengaged. You can't spin the wheels by hand on the stands when it's on, so it's making contact, but not enough to hold the car, even tho I physically can't pull the lever any tighter

 

Ebrake lever assembly is the stock from 85. Are they different? I had thought about that but couldn't find any info on if there was a different design that provided more leverage or something

 

They did change but can't remember the exact year. They have a type of auto adjuster or something different iirc but I'm not 100% sure that would be your problem.

 

Perhaps the limit is in the e-brake mechanism and not the brakes. Maybe run a little experiment by removing the axle cables from the pull cable and cycle the e-brake handle to see if the handle and pull cable have full range movement. At least you'll know for sure whether your efforts should be focused on the front half or rear half of the e-brake system.

 

I'm confident the problem is in the calipers since the lever was coming all the way up and I adjusted via the tunnel connection. I can also see the levers on the calipers moving so I know the cables are moving

 

More curls at the gym?

Probably going to have to take stuff apart to figure it out. If I were in your shoes I'd take the calipers off and do a tear down on the bench until I found the problem.

 

I was not clear, when I was referring to a "Brake Lever".
I apologize.

I was not referring to the Handle that is pulled to apply the Parking Brakes...
But instead the Lever that is on each Rear Brake Caliper that the Parking Brake Linkage moves to apply the Parking Brakes.

That is was I was talking about in my last post, when I said this: