Fishinfooleric10@aol.com

Alright so I have a 99 5.3 4x4 and this weekend I finally decided while I was doing back brake pads I would do the emergency brake so I don't have to have the weight of a boat or just a hard incline sitting on Park. After alot of persuasion and little cursing I got the emergency brake installed( i don't know why they make them things one piece ). The old ones were basically non existant, there barely anything left to em. Briefly tested em by setting parking brake and with my hands I couldn't pull rotor off or anything and couldn't turn it by hand. Well I guess I should have done a little more to test it because the parking brake isn't doin diddly squat. So, can someone please give me instruction on how to adjust that sucker so I can have a parking brake. I appreciate the help

country_09

on the driver side frame rail, there's a wire. That's the parkin brake line. All you should have to do is tighten it up

Fishinfooleric10@aol.com

Thanks country 09, I feel dumb trying to describe this but bare with me. The thing that the emergency brake slides into and it expands when you push the e brake pedal down. I see it has a notched wheel on it that can be turned, do I have to do anything with that?

MDTAHOE

There is an adjuster at the shoe. Should be a small hole in the rotor hat to adjust from.

Fishinfooleric10@aol.com

Okay and should I turn that wheel clock or counterclockwise to adjust the emergency brake. Sorry MDTahoe you got me a little confused is there anyway i could get a little more specific

MDTAHOE

I not sure how to explain it more. You may have to pull at least 1 rotor off so you can see. In the center of the rotor there maybe/ should be a small hole between wheel studs with or without a rubber plug in it. The open end of the shoes were slid over the adjuster. Turn the hole/ rotor until you can see the adjuster. One side of that adjuster turns. Not sure which way off the top of my head you have to turn

67Motorcat

MDTAHOE has some good advice,but that works only if the truck is equipped with rear DRUM brakes.The OP truck is a 99 with the rear DISC brake.

However in this case it only possible to adjust the star wheel with the rotor removed.
Adjust so you can just barely get the rotor back in place.Spin the rotor by hand to equalize.

Manually pull the actuating lever that the cable is hooked to behind the backing plate.This will further equalize.If you can take the rotor back off fairly easily it is still too loose.

Again remove rotor and turn star wheel so you can barely put the rotor back on by spinning and pushing at the same time.

The trick is to get the shoes to ride as close as possible to the drum surface.
If it drags a bit that is actually good.They are not self adjusting so the drag will be minimal and for only a few miles.

You will find that even after all this it still won't hold on a hill like it did when it was new.
That is because the cable has stretched beyond the limit of the adjuster beside the frame under the truck.Add a 3/8" sleeve ,about an inch and a half,and a couple washers over the cable to tack up the slack.

You will need to pull the cable where it enters the housing under the truck heading to the pedal and lock it with vise grips so you can get the sleeve on,then adjust as tight as you can,kinda like a guitar string,until you see the backing plate actuators just START to move.That's the only way it will tighten up before the pedal goes to the floor.As the cable ages it becomes more"stretchy"

It will work good as new then.

It is a **** poor OEM parking brake design at best,but will work fine as long as the cable is tight and the shoes can move freely.

MDTAHOE

I am very aware it is a disc brake system with parking brake shoes

67Motorcat

Yes sir,

I was only stating that there is No access hole with a rubber plug like a drum brake equipped truck,thus no way to adjust as you described.That way people would not be confused.

If there was it sure would be a lot easier to adjust.I'll bet this very parking brake problem is why GM went to a rear drum/parking brake design on the newer trucks.

Fishinfooleric10@aol.com

Well thanks alot to all of you, I should get back into this e brake problem as soon as finals are over( shoot me now)