C2-rebuilding the parking brake

[Robert M.]

The parking brake on my 67 roadster will not hold the car on any kind of an incline. It is probably the original and has never been touched. I would like to completely rebuild it. Can this be done by itself or is it best to do when additional restoration is performed on the trailing arms?

[David Z.]

Re: C2-rebuilding the parking brake

Rob

You can do it with the hub in place (rotor removed) but it's tricky. Wife and I did the driver's side on the 65 a few months back. Go to this web site for some good pointers:

http://rowleycorvette.com/corvette_repair.html

Believe it or not, dental floss was an important "tool". We wound up tying floss around the shoe hold-down pin, passing the floss through the hole in the shoe (mainly on the front shoe front, the rear pin is "captured") then stringing on the hold down spring and slotted retainer from the side. Also tied the spring in compressed mode and tied the retatiner to it so we could treat both parts as a unit. When we got everything in and the retainer rotated into the locking position (working through the small hole in the hub is tricky)I reached in from the side with a long (3") Exacto blade and cut the floss. Sounds funny but it worked.

If you are going to be taking the T arms off, I'd probably wait and do it then. It ought to be a piece of cake with the spindles removed. Just like an old drum brake change.

Good luck.

Dave Z

[Joe L.]

Re: C2-rebuilding the parking brake

Rob-----

It can be easily done as a stand-alone service operation IF the rotor-to-spindle rivets have been previously removed. In that case, you can just remove the rotor and replace the parking brake components. It's a little tricky to do this with the spindle in place, but, with the aid of a special tool which is available from most Corvette suppliers for a nominal cost (about 7 or 8 dollars), it can be done.

I NEVER recommend drilling out rotor rivets if there is ANY way that it can be avoided. So, I would not do this just to replace the parking brake mechanism. In that case, it's best to service the parking brake mechanism when the trailing arm spindle/bearing assemblies are rebuilt. At that time, the rotor and spindle should be removed from the bearing support as a UNIT.

The main thing that causes parking brake problems is severe corrosion of the mechanism (most prevalent in areas where the cars have EVER been driven on salted roads) or, just simply lack of proper adjustment. A 65-82 Corvette parking brake, even when in perfect condition and perfectly adjusted, is really quite marginal. Adjustment is tricky because it involves THREE seperate adjustments that have to "integrate" nearly perfectly for the thing to be marginal. The adjustments are for the shoes (through the hole in the rotor), the rear cable (at the equalizer), and the lever adjustment.

If you cannot get any adjustment at the shoes, that means that the mechanism is likely suffering from corrosion damage. In that case, a rebuild is necessary.

[Robert M.]

Re: C2-rebuilding the parking brake

Dave and Joe thanks for the response and your expertise. I had a sneaky feeling that this was not that simple. I will wait until I do the trailing arms.

[Gary B.]

Parking brake cable; a question for Joe Lucia

Joe,

I'm thinking about modifying a new rear parking brake cable to make it more cosmetically correct, and in the process I need to shorten the cable by 1/2". Will this cause me any problems in terms of adjusting the cable once it's on the car? Or is there enough slop in the system that a cable that is 1/2" shorter won't be a problem?

Thanks,

Gary

[Joe L.]

Re: Parking brake cable; a question for Joe Lucia

Gary------

I don't think that a 1/2" shortening of the cable will create any problems, at all. There is plenty of adjustment at the equalizer to accomodate this. Many of the cables on the market today are actually a little too long. They still work ok, but you can just about run out of adjustment at the other end of the adjustment rod.

[Gary B.]

Thanks Joe *NM*