Emergency Brake Staying Engaged?

[Twistiva]

Guys -

My daughter's 91L has developed an intermittant squeal. First thought it was a brake wear indicator on the disc brakes on the fronts then realized last week that the squeal was coming from the rear of the car. Took it to a brake/tire shop today and they said they could not duplicate the squeal and when they pulled the wheels (all 4) they couldn't find anything that looked bad. I've known the shop manager for awhile. He seems like a straight shooter and didn't charge me.

Anyway, picked up the car and with the emergency brake handle fully disengaged (and the Emergency Brake idiot light out) I started to hear the squeal immediately as I backed out of the parking spot and could feel (and see) the rear of the car 'squat' downward a little signaling the emergency brake was still engaged. Tire shop manager came out and looked underneath and verified the brakes were still partially engaged.

He recommended I replace the rear brake shoes (which have about 25-30% useful life left) and that they clean up / try to get the rust off of the drums and repack the bearings. My shop manual is in my other Festiva out of town for the next 3-5 days so I can't look this up.

Question: So does this guy's recommended fix look like it will solve this? What do you guys do when emergency brakes stick?

[Gomez]

His fix will not solve it. Your problem is in the E brake linkage inside the drum. It gets rusted and freezes. You must have the shop remove it from each side and free them up. He will see it as soon as you tell him where to look. I always take them out, put it in a vice and go to work with PB Blaster, a pair of vice grips, and a hammer. It should be super loose when done. Clean it, grease it, wipe off the excess, reinstall and you will be good to go. ANY shop should be able to handle this fix. If not, you shouldn't be going there. No parts required, just tools and labor. I will guarantee this is the problem. Unless of course there is actually something else wrong but this is the case 99.9% of the time.

[Twistiva]

His fix will not solve it. Your problem is in the E brake linkage inside the drum. It gets rusted and freezes. You must have the shop remove it from each side and free them up. He will see it as soon as you tell him where to look. I always take them out, put it in a vice and go to work with PB Blaster, a pair of vice grips, and a hammer. It should be super loose when done. Clean it, grease it, wipe off the excess, reinstall and you will be good to go. ANY shop should be able to handle this fix. If not, you shouldn't be going there. No parts required, just tools and labor. I will guarantee this is the problem. Unless of course there is actually something else wrong but this is the case 99.9% of the time.

Gomez -

Replacing the shoes: I think that was something he recommended just because he'd have to take the wheel and drum off to get at the problem.

Repacking the bearings. Not sure why he recommended this.

About how much time should this take to clean / fix?

I remember a post about 2-3 months ago about E-brake parts near the drums rusting and breaking. Guys were raving about some brand new clean ones on German e-Bay that were sparkly clean. If you remember that post, this is the same part you're talking about, correct?

And, BTW, thanks!!

[bravekozak]

I had a lot of e-brake cables on my first Four Green order. Sorry, they were all spoken for. Did everyone who ordered them, install them? AVL stands for Avella (equivalent to our Aspires). There is nothing like a new e-brake cable with nano grease on new clevis pins.

[Bert]

On all my cars the handbrake pivot that goes in through the back plate of the rear brakes had to be un-seized after every winter. It is not a big deal to free these up and involves putting them in a vise and moving them back and forth with a hammer or vice grips until they move freely again. Same goes for the physical toothed edge and pivot of the brake adjuster on the same part.

[WmWatt]

The part causing the problem is likely the clevis pin on the emergency brake arm. It's the pivot mentioned above and is located behind the rear brake on the outside. As mentioned they tend to rust in place if you don't use the emergency brake regularly. Once I got mine freed I replaced them (one on each side) with regular bolts through which I drilled holes for cotter pins to keep them in place. Needless to say I apply the parking brake now every time the car is parked. There have been discussions here which you can read by using the search feature. You can also look up "clevis pin" on the Internet.

Another thing you may want to look up is automamtic brake adjustment which happens to the rear brakes when the car backs up. It is not as likely to be the problem but in case your pins are okay that would be the next thing to check.

[bravekozak]

joint pin KD06144438 + snap pin MS08344435A

[F3BZ]

living in the rust belt, i've had this problem on every daily driven festiva every year. it's almost always the E brake actuator levers frozen at the pivot keeping the shoes from retracting. it's usually just one side but the other side will soon follow. in a pinch you might get the shoes to retract by tapping on the lever end sticking out of the backing plate through the oval grommet. you'll still need to remove them to really free them up as Gomez described since the pivot point is inside the drum. check for cracked or missing rubber grommet although even with a good grommet they still seem to eventually freeze up. if the E brake is off and one or both of the cables going to these levers has a lot of slack, that'll tell you which lever is the culprit.

[Twistiva]

Guys -

I thank you all for your help on this. Will print out your words of advice and take it to the shop. I'd love to jack up my daughter's Festiva and do it myself so I can learn but I just don't have the time. Will let you know what happens.

Thanks again!

[WmWatt]

Brave: I wanted to buy 4 x 33 cent shifter bushings from FourGreen but they wanted $29 shipping. I did get a pair of sway bar bushings from them at $7 each but shipping took the total to $42. Gotta love that shpping charge. The bushings came FedEx from somewhere in Korea. Route on invoice was some town in Korea to Seul to Anchorage Alaksa to somewhere in Missouri to Toronto and finally to Ottawa.

[bravekozak]

Wm, that's why we try and encourage group buys for the volume discount. It almost negates the shipping charges.

[Twistiva]

Decided to jump in and try this myself. Wheels came off super easy. Soaked both L/R wheel hubs with PB Blaster. Hubs wiggle just a fraction of an inch but no more. Any tips on getting the wheel hub off? Just use brute force/hammer? Shop manual doesn't give any tips.

Thanks in advance.

[Twistiva]

Hubs: disregard.

[Gomez]

Pry bar, large screwdriver, bfh (big #^%÷€&£ hammer). Keep on prying.

[Twistiva]

Pry bar, large screwdriver, bfh (big #^%÷€&£ hammer). Keep on prying.

Gomez -

Got lucky. Put a big nail in the E-brake lever arm hole and pulled it towards me and got it to 'pop' and release the brake shoes. My 2 oldest kids cleaned the E-brake levers/parking brake struts up so clean you can eat off them. 2 questions:

1 - They cleaned them so well that they removed most of the gold-colored plating (used PB Blaster and a circular wire brush on a drill). Should I paint them to perhaps restore a little corrosion / rust protection? If so, maybe paint 'em with spray paint specially made for high temperatures?

2 - In reference to the "self-adjuster" teeth on the end of the parking brake strut....what physical position do you set the self-adjusting cam/teeth at when installing the E-brake lever & strut back on the backing plate? Does it not matter?

Pix to come tomorrow. Way late, gotta go to bed.