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When you say adjust, which part? The shoes? The cable?
For my 2005 Express 2500 2wd, the parking brake is drum-based, they are adjusted at the rear brake like most drum brake setups. The adjustment star is located on the backside of the brake plate through an access hole hidden by a rubber plug. The fun part, on one side, it's in the upper part of the plate (driver side for me) and the other on the lower.
For the cable, there's an auto adjustment built into the park pedal. To 'reset', need to hold the pedal all the way up, pull the cable really hard and insert a screwdriver blade through a hole on the side of the pedal to prevent it from snapping back. Typically a two-man job. Same way to enable the auto adjust, do NOT let the cable slam to tension; pull on it, then remove screwdriver and slowly release the cable.
Same as my 2005, you may have disc brakes for actual braking with a drum setup for parking. Odd, I know, having two brake systems with one dedicated to park brake, surprised when I found this on my '87 Corvette. Apologies, not sure of a good way to check you don't have drum parking brake other than remove the rotor.
Thanks for that info. I would have never guessed that. I will take a look see this weekend. Our weather has taken a turn for the worse right no here in Northern Colorado. Will update as soon as I confirm.
I'm the original poster of this thread, now have a new user name. I finally got around to following up on adjusting my parking. Kael was correct. They are adjusted exactly as He stated. I removed the right side rotor to confirm and immediately spotted the adjusting slot. The lining was 50% so I reinstalled the rotor made a slight adjustment , just a slight drag on the drum. But before adjusting I depressed the pedal 2 inches. THIS IS IMPORTANT. By making the adjustment with the pedal depressed, and feeling a slight drag on the drum while turning by hand you probably have it correctly adjusted. When you release the pedal the wheel should spin freely without any drag. It is possible to adjust the brake without removing the tire, but its much much easier with the tire removed. On the right side, spin the adjusting wheel in an UPWARD direction to tighten and on the left side spin the adjusting wheel DOWN to tighten.
I think that they are supposed to self adjust (during a reverse brake?). Problem is our old friend corrosion keeps it from working properly. So if we clean and lube the parts it should start self adjusting again, right?
I saw nothing that would indicate there was a backup adjustment on mine. Besides , I do considerable backing with my vehicle and its never happened. My manual doesn't mention anything about that either.
Since only our parking brake uses the drum, maybe setting/releasing the park brake adjusts it. Having the gear wheel suggests that something engages it. But I could be wrong. Haven't done the rears yet.
Last edited by mountainmanjoe; April 6th, 2020 at 3:41 AM.
November 20th, 2019, 7:45 AM
