BartmanEH

The other day I had the car jacked up to replace the brake fluid when I noticed that with the parking brake on, the rear wheels can be rotated a few degrees before clunking to a stop. What I mean is, I put my hands on a rear wheel like a steering wheel, and it will turn a few degrees each way and go "clunk" at each end. Anyone else notice this? I can't understand why it would do that with the parking brake on which engages the brake shoes inside the rotor hub. Either the whole hub mechanism can move a bit or there's something wrong with my rear wheel/parking brake.

ucf_bronco

iTrader: (1)

Just an idea...

Perhaps your parking brake isn't engaging (due to loose cable or other issue) and instead the wheel is stopping due to the transmission (assuming you're not in neutral and you drive a SH-AWD model).

NBP04TL4ME

Hmmm. If your parking brake is working properly, I don't see it moving at all - period.

Teddybear

does ur parking brake work normally?
mine is pretty weak. i have to yank it pretty hard before the car stops moving. i've done the "drive slowly with it engaged" thing as well, and it's usually a bit better after.

NBP04TL4ME

^^^^ There are adjustments that can be made to offset brake pad wear.

Teddybear

^Already done. There's less slack, but they still don't work that well. They never did on my 4g.

Our parking brakes don't use the same pads as stopping. They're drum brakes inside the rear rotor hat.

NBP04TL4ME

^^^ I knew that, but forgot

There has to be a way to make adjustments so that the e-brake works as designed.

BartmanEH

I'm pretty sure my parking brake works correctly - I can use it to cause a controlled oversteer around corners in low traction conditions (snow)

Also when it was jacked up, I could rotate the rear wheels of my SH-AWD freely while in Park without the parking brake on. I think Park only locks the front wheels of the transmission. Then when I applied "one click" of parking brake there was a slight drag as expected. When the parking brake was fully engaged, the rear wheel only moved a few degrees and clunked to a stop in both directions.

I guess I'll ask the dealer next time I'm in. Great discussion, folks. Thanks for all the opinions and help.

BartmanEH

Here's the parking brake adjustment procedure.