Solutions for Bad GM Parking Brake Design?

[WEF]

Mine is a 2500HD with the E brake in the rear rotor hat. I just did rotors/calipers/pads and seals on the rear and adjusted the e brake shoes. The e brake will not hold the truck on a moderately steep incline. When the e brake pedal is depressed, the shoes contact the hat after a few clicks and then the spring tension between the pedal and cable takes over. I'm convinced that the only thing wrong with mine is that spring is too weak.

[stick64]

So in the end, the consumer has no options to improve performance with the design of this e-brake system ? Would everybody agree ? When my mechanic complained to a GM engineer about the design the response was "it puts for on your table doesn't it" Hmmm !

[hcetri]

My e brakes on my 99 have not worked for about 2 years. I have the original pads and just turned 95k miles. How do you adjust the e brakes?

[stick64]

You are likely going to find that the e-brake pads have worn down. Thus, needing two new sets of e-pads and two new rear rotors. Just what I have picked up on this forum, very few have had any success with adjustments.

[rjeffery]

Originally Posted by hcetri

My e brakes on my 99 have not worked for about 2 years. I have the original pads and just turned 95k miles. How do you adjust the e brakes?

Turn the star wheel on the parking brake shoe. Tighten it up until it touches the drum (inside of the disk) then back it off a few clicks. You can also adjust the cable slack by turning the adjustor on the cable itself (just north of the fuel filter).

[huminski]

My 2004 just failed inspection due to parking brake (Jan, 2008) 92,000 miles.

I checked cable and the adjuster was already bottomoed out.

Pulled the rear discs and sure enough the parking brake shoes were almost completely worn down. I was able to back the adjusters out enough on both sides to get the brake to hold enough to pass inspection here.

Also noticed that my rear discs were in horrible shape. I replaced the pads at about 60,000 miles, there was slight grooving on the discs. Now at 90,000 miles, there is horrible grooving, and when I was handling the discs what seemed like a shiny glazing would flake off of the friction area of the discs. Pads looked like they were barely worn. Pads appeared shiny as well. Going to have to replace the rotors. All highway mileage, 125 mile commute a day, barely ever use the damn brakes.