Re: Brake Fade? What Brake Fade?

Posted by Ross On 2015/9/13 5:57:57

No, please do not readjust the handbrake cable. The cable has not stretched. They do not stretch unless they are at the point of breaking. Pulling that adjustment ever tighter causes the rear shoes to not sit properly on their anchor pin and less efficient braking results.

First bring the rear shoes back into good adjustment by means of the star wheel in the normal fashion--tighten till you can not turn the wheel by hand, then back off just enough to make the wheel nicely free, usually about 10 clicks if all is in good order. That will more than likely bring the e-brake back full effectiveness.

Over the years I have removed and thrown away (with malice and violence) dozens of those little doodads that folks hang on their brake cable to remove "cable stretch". In each case the rear brakes were badly out of adjustment on the order of 30 to 60 clicks. After that was taken care of it was not a problem to achieve good e-brake action with the normal adjustments. As an added bonus, the overall braking of the car was much improved.

Because of this oft repeated scenario, every time I get a new-to-me car in for service, I disconnect the e-brakes at the equalizer, make certain the cables are free, do the normal wheel adjustment with cables slack, then reconnect at the equalizer, tightening the adjustment there just enough to remove all lost motion in the cables.