how do u adjust the rear brakes?

[birar]

I have a 97 lsi sedan and i wanna know if theres a way 2 adjust the rear brakes becuz i almost rearended somebody in the rain both wheel cylinders r working so wtf? and there is no drag on them watso ever i could drive 45 min and the drums never get warm so that tells me there outa ajustment but i cant seem to figure them out does anybody know?

[Scrapper]

yes theres a star ajuster we call. it it's in beteen brake shuse it probably is froze up. but you have to take back hub off and either take the ajuster out of there because it's probably froze up and free it up. you might try this is get on a driveway or road and put it in reverce and just go back a little ways and hit the brake hard to see if you can get them ajusted and if not you have to take rear drums off to ajust but do the reverse deal do it about four times if you don't get any more brake than you started with you have to pull drums off. one more thing look behind the back hup plate and see if theres a hole you can stick a brake spoon ajuster to try to move star ajuster don't get them to tight on ajusting just until they start to grab a little when you spin drum.

[Woodie83]

They're supposed to adjust themselves every time you use them, but the adjusters are very prone to failure. We do not have star adjusters so put down the spoon and stop with the violent backing up trying to adjust them. Our adjusters have two levers with very fine serrations on them which are part of the parking brake lever inside the drum. The serrations strip and they go full limp, lever must be replaced.

That being said, the rear brakes do very little, even when in perfect condition. When you're hard on the brakes 90% of the weight is on the front tires, so 90% of the braking is there too.

[birar]

ah so thats why when i had one of the drums off i pushed alil on the brake pedal 2 c if the whell cylinders were seized and then i pulled the parking brake slightly and i had a hell of a time geting the drum back on but i did and now that side is adjusted well maybe i should try doen that to the other side lol

[Hugemoth]

The only rear brake adjustment on my 93 Swift is the parking brake cable adjuster near the parking brake lever. No star adjusters at all.

Q

[Scrapper]

well i learned somthing new. thanks for posting that i've never done one of these yet. and on p. a. on a 91 and 93 they really screwed up rear brake systom when they went from a regular rear wheel drive set up. they stick and skip and pop and i've seen other post that there p. a. dose same thing.

[birar]

so u guys think if i adusted the parking brake cables that would wrk 2 get the rite adjustments? cuz in my mind that would wrk and the e brake would be work awsome in the winter lol

[Hugemoth]

Can't hurt to try and it's easy to do. Probably won't work if your car has star adjusters though.

Q

Originally Posted by birar

so u guys think if i adusted the parking brake cables that would wrk 2 get the rite adjustments? cuz in my mind that would wrk and the e brake would be work awsome in the winter lol

[birar]

it dosent have star adjusters lol if it did i would knw how to do it i will give it a shot 2mrrw and let u guys knw