Fixing a seized parking brake pivot

[TominMO]

Today I went out and fixed my Aspire's parking brake pivot; the one inside the brake drum that gets rusty and keeps the parking brake on.

Inspired by Advancedynamix's shifter fix, I decided to use nylon washers as thrust bearings, to eliminate any chance of them rusting together in the future, along with stainless fasteners.

The pic below needs to be corrected in two ways:
1. I also put a nylon washer between the screw head and the pivot arm; and
2. I reversed the position of the screw head and nylock nut. You want the smaller screw head on top, to clear the inside of the brake shoe better. In the picture, the assembled pivot arm in the background is for the passenger side, and the nut as shown is on top.

Using the nylock nut means I could adjust the tension to loose enough without being floppy. And the stainless fasteners of course won't rust. They are 1/4" screws, and slightly loose in the holes they pass thru.

On an Aspire, the pivot halves are held in place by one of those two rivets you see. They are secured by a washer thingy that crimps on. I don't know the proper name for it. This might also be true for later Festys like the '93 that comes with the nut cage and cotter pin instead of the crush nut, but IDK. My '90 Festy has a rivet that you have to grind off one end to get it off, instead of the crimping washer.

I'm hoping this fixes this little issue forever. I'll take another, corrected pic tmw.

[monkeykiller1996]

do you know if the aspire pivit arms are the same size as the festiva ones when i bought my festiva they were missing so i went to the junkyard and bought some aspire ones they seem to fit and work ok but i had to modify the part the brake cable connects to because it was hitting my rims

[TominMO]

do you know if the aspire pivit arms are the same size as the festiva ones when i bought my festiva they were missing so i went to the junkyard and bought some aspire ones they seem to fit and work ok but i had to modify the part the brake cable connects to because it was hitting my rims

No, I don't know if they are the same.

[Bert]

do you know if the aspire pivit arms are the same size as the festiva ones when i bought my festiva they were missing so i went to the junkyard and bought some aspire ones they seem to fit and work ok but i had to modify the part the brake cable connects to because it was hitting my rims

Novel idea! Certainly they (Aspire/Festy) brake pivots look and function the same but I have a hard time believing they're identical. Someone on here will be able to do a proper comparison. In the same vein how to Rio pivots compare.

[WmWatt]

The pin is called a "clevis" pin. I remember that from fixing the ones on my '89. I replaced the clevis pins with a ordinary bolts. They are held on with cotter pins so I drilled a hole in the bolts to accept a cotter pin. I find the best way to keep the pins from rusting is to use the parking brake.

[TominMO]

Novel idea! Certainly they (Aspire/Festy) brake pivots look and function the same but I have a hard time believing they're identical. Someone on here will be able to do a proper comparison. In the same vein how to Rio pivots compare.

Yeah, they are probably not identical, simply because the Aspire has larger brakes. The parking brake adjuster would have to be longer.

[Pu241]

Good work Tom!
Always good to have pics!
So when did you up grade phone/camera?

[TominMO]

Good work Tom!
Always good to have pics!
So when did you up grade phone/camera?

Same camera. Just turned off the date feature.

[TominMO]

The pin is called a "clevis" pin. I remember that from fixing the ones on my '89. I replaced the clevis pins with a ordinary bolts. They are held on with cotter pins so I drilled a hole in the bolts to accept a cotter pin. I find the best way to keep the pins from rusting is to use the parking brake.

I think the clevis pin you are talking about is the one that connects the outside half of the pivot arm to the cable. That one has a cotter pin. The one inside the drum does not. On my Festy, I replaced the outside clevis pin with a stainless bolt and nylock nut, and greased both sides of the pivot arms where it fits into the end of the cable.

[TominMO]

A better pic. At the top is the driver's side unit, at the bottom is the pass. side in "exploded" view. After taking this pic, I disassembled them and painted the part that sticks out of the drum area and attaches to the cable. I also noticed that the little rubber boots in the backing plate were in good shape, but dry, so I squirted some Armor-All on them to re-moisten them.



I also used some 3/8" galvanized washers to space the backing plate from the trailing arm by 6mm. This will eliminate the need for my 6mm spacer. I may still need to use the 3mm spacer tho. I didn't do anything fancy like Charlie, just stuck washers on the stock studs. And 6mm is about the max, as you run out of thread after that. Notice the piece of blue tape; the strut was rubbing there during hard turning, so I cut some of it away. You can see the painted-over scar on the strut. It's worse on the Festy, because the Bilsteins have a thicker body than these VW KYBs. Did the same thing there too. Thanks to william and Advancedynamix for the heads-up on this issue.



I picked these up at Lowe's. Note that this is not a precision-manufactured part; there are skinny ones and fat ones. Four fats = five skinnys, pretty much. I used all fats, and lined the four stacks of four next to each other and ran my finger over them, to check for equal height. There are 25 per bag, but with the variations I got two bags. If I only did 3 per stud I could have gotten away with one bag, but there's that variation in thickness to consider too. They are a useful washer size to have around for other stuff too.

[monkeykiller1996]

i will say tho, the aspire one fits and works on my stock festiva rear drums so they must be fairly close to the same size i have to replace the wheel bearings tomorrow anyway ill snap a pic (if i remember)of the aspire's i have in mine

[Dragonhealer]

I am crying for you guys with all that rust !
Tom, conventional engineering wants to have a smooth shank in the pivot area, does pivoting on threads work long term? does that help keep the pivot clean? Or hold more lube? Just wondering.

[TominMO]

I am crying for you guys with all that rust !
Tom, conventional engineering wants to have a smooth shank in the pivot area, does pivoting on threads work long term? does that help keep the pivot clean? Or hold more lube? Just wondering.

The bolt is smaller diameter than the stock piece, so pivoting on threads should not be an issue. I believe this is a permanent solution, but only time will prove it out.

[Dragonhealer]

Looks like a great fix for very little money, what sort of lube do you use?

[TominMO]

Looks like a great fix for very little money, what sort of lube do you use?

The grease referred to in post #9 is wheel bearing grease, which I use for lot of things it was not intended for. Like oil drain plug threads, to eliminate leaking even with 0W30 oil.