Emergency Brake Problem

I recently replaced my pads on the rear brake drums. After the replacement I had a lot of slack in my emergency brake. I tightened the cable, which took the slack out of it but my e-brake will not hold my truck even on gentle slopes. Any ideas where I screwed up.

 

check to make sure the brakes are adjusted properly.did you have any problems with the parking brake before?

 

Try pushing the brake pedal down before engaging the emergency brake. If they still fail to engage your brakes need adjustment.

 

When you replaced the shoes.... did you 'adjust' the star wheel to adjust the shoes?

I'm not sure if this will work or not, but worth a try.... Go in reverse and step on the brakes while in reverse. Try that a few times. I'm not exactly sure but some vehicles brakes adjust while in reverse.

If that doesn't help... take the wheels off again and take the drums off. If the drums are very easy to remove, then the shoes aren't set tight enough. You'll have to adjust the star wheel to tighten things up. They really should be tight enough that you can just slide the drums on with a bit of resistance.

Then...if you make adjustments to the star wheel - you'll probably have to adjust the emergency brake cable again because it'll probably be too tight.

 

What she said.

I'd dosconnect the emergency brake cable before adjusting the star.