Hi all,

I went to AutoZone and got new rotors, pads, parking brake shoes, and parking brake hardware. It all went on normally and the parts match up to what I had on there, but now they don't want to spin. Handbrake is down and I loosened the adjuster but by the lever to right before the nut reaches the end of the stud. Star adjustment is tightened all the way down and they sit on the parking brake cable pivot thing and everything lines up. At first they were impossible to get on but after loosening the nut they fit on well.

Passenger rear spind but requires insane effort, driver rear does not spin.

I'm stuck :/

 

I already replied to your PM, however, for the sake of thread continuity I pasted same reply here...

In these cases if the parking brake is too tight or will not release then you either have bad parts or install error. Assuming the parts are correct (not a fan of AutoZone but I digress), then you have to ensure that the shoes, adjusters, actuators, and all the small bits were installed in the right orientation and fully seated. The star adjuster has to be fully retracted and installed in the right direction.- they are side-specific.

If I were to guess, I would say that the shoes are not fully seated onto the lower toggle lever or onto the star adjusters.

Of course, you also have to ensure that the actual cable is secured and not bent/ kinked/ or otherwise not fully releasing.

Unfortunately, this is one of those "you just have to get in there" and look things over type of deals.

 

Sending my message back here too lol:

I looked over everything a million times and it was all good. I took them off and sanded the contact points on the backing plate and it seemed to help, also ran some p320 over the parking brake shoes to help sand them down. They're duralast gold rotors so they have a coating on them as well that should rub off. The lever seems good and the cable moves smooth Question about the adjusting nut in the center console: I loosened it until right before it was flush with the stud, put them on, then tightened it back up. I think (will double check later when I go back to the garage) that when the parking brake is down, the nut doesn't sit flush with the bracket the stud goes through, only when it's up. How do I know when that adjusting nut is good? I lift the parking brake slowly until 7 clicks per fsm, and then tighten it down until I can lift it up to 10-11 click max. Is that good? It spins right now, but does take some effort. I'm just not sure if it's more effort than what it is supposed to be. Honestly just needed new parking brakes and no dealed near me had any in stock :/

 

Just follow the procedure in the FSM and you will be good to go. There will be some initial slack on the adjusting nut but after a few driving cycles the star adjuster will take up that slack on the cables/ nut and even things out.

 

I bled my brakes without disconnect the ABS module 🫠. Hopefully no air this time like last time.

Thanks for the tip on the adjusting nut!

 

I bled my brakes and, as last year, the pedal is not fully firm. It slows down but doesn't feel good. I like a completely solid pedal all the way through and this does not do that. I used motul 5.1 if I slam my brakes, the car stops decently quick and sometimes has instances of being a firm pedal especially when I pump the brakes.

Question: getting a pressure bleeder again, I had the motive and whenever id crack the bleeder valve at 12psi it'd drop pressure pretty quickly. Ordered an Orion one now to be here tomorrow to hopefully fix it before work on Monday, but is the pressure drop thing normal?

Thank you again!!

 

Once you have the pressure bleeder attached and pressurised at 10-15psi MAX you slowly open the caliper bleeder valve and let the brake fluid flow until no air bubbles are seen. Do not open the bleeder full monty, just a small crack should be sufficient. Once done with that caliper check power bleeder for fluid level and psi- top off/ re-pressurise as needed. Repeat for the other calipers.

Remember, the bleeding order is: rear right → front left → rear left → and front right.

On the Akebono calipers, always bleed the inner chamber first, then the outer.

 

try different brand shoes. I had the same issue with autozone brake shoes while installing Z1 2p rotors a month ago. the rotor would get stuck, barely going over the shoes even with the adjuster backed up all the way. a quick trip to o'reilly auto parts fixed the issue. not before checking and re-doing my work 5x. spoiling half my day. autozone shoes were definitely out of spec compared o'reillys. i will say, the friction material was misaligned on the o'rellys shoes by several millimeters. cheap parts on both ends.

 

Good to know that it just sucks for G's in general lol.. my experience with AutoZone parking brakes have only been good on my R51 pathfinder so this threw me off