Hello I am having a problem with my xb I bought the car used and I didn't find out till today that my emergency brake doesn't work. I pull the lever and the light goes on but no brakes is there some sort of adjustment or something I can make to them I know on older cars you can back up and adjust the brake pads but I don't know if that's even the issue or if that will work for the xb. Sorry to sound like a complete noob. I'm about to take her on a 1600 mile road trip and I'm trying to make sure everything is functioning.

 

there is a way to adjust but i have no clue sometimes mine doesnt hold

 

Take up the center console , look at the Brake handle and you will see the 2 nuts holding the cable end. Loosen the top ( locking nut) pull the handle up 6 to 9 clicks ( 6 is better) tighten up the lower nut pulling the slack out of the cable. Tighten the lock nut down. When you pull the handle it sould be completley tight between 6 and 9 clicks. Readjust as nessary to your feel/want.

If you look at the on line manual (under mantinence and car care) you can get a better picture of how to do it. Good luck.

 

Very helpful thank you.

 

I've been working on cars for 14 years and this is something I just learned two years ago, and wish I knew sooner. Last time I did the rear brakes on my '88 Camry wagon I had the rear brakes set too tight, but it seemed I need it like that to have the parking brake work. Some one once told me with a drum brake you back up fast and then stop and this will set them, this doesn't work. And by my brake shoes being too tight it wore our the rear shoes faster and warped the rear shoes and caused vibration when braking, more noticeable with my aftermarket 16" rims/tires on.

This is what I found to work best. After a rear drum (this is only for drum brakes) brake job, have the star wheel set threaded all the way in. If there isn't an extreme amount of slop in the parking brake cable then you don't need to adjust that. Then start pulling the parking brake handle up, and letting it down. Keep repeating this, it might take a while. Took me about 15 pulls. As you are doing this you can hear the adjusting levers pulling and ratcheting on the adjusting star wheels. Because the parking brake lever has one cable that splits to two with a balance (left/right) bar both left and right brakes will adjust independent and perfect. When I did this the driver side was set first and it took two more pulls to finish the passenger side.

It is important that every time you park you use your parking brake. This will keep the cable and other parts from seizing and not working when you need it to. Also every time you pull the parking brake it adjusts its self and the rear brakes. Since the shoes pivot off the parking brake adjuster under normal braking. The shoes will be held in the right location and take a normal about of pedal travel to operate, making them work correctly. If the parking brake is never used then the rear brakes aren't adjusting as the shoes wear down and it takes more pedal travel to activate them and they are delayed compared to the front brake operation.

Now my parking brake always works and feels the same, it is just right and in spec with the repair manual 4-7 clicks.

Hope this helps.

 

Well when I first discovered the problem I did that very thing (pulling the brake up and down a lot) but to no avail I did it about 30 times and still nothing thing is I can hear the line moving something in the rear end but no brakes no matter what.

 

Then, since you haven't done any recent work and don't need adjusting from that. I sounds like something has changed. Your brake broke, LOL. Get under there and check it out. Something broke or a cable came out of a bracket, which I doubt they are really in there! Troubleshooting is most of the battle, fixing it is the easy part. Good luck.

 

WRONG! Do not do this method!

Jack up the rear end and and look behind the drum assembly and you will see a rubber grommet, if you pull that out you can see a small wheel with notches, you turn that with a flat head screw driver to tighten the drums. I have no access to the service manual right now, so I can't tell you which way to spin it, I'll try to reference it later today.

QFT... If this method doesn't work try what I said previously. Adjust the star wheel manually.

 

bB384 writes "WRONG! Do not do this method!"

Guess the Tech Manual at the dealershup , online and the Repair manual are all wrong.

Glad SOMEONE is smarter than the people that built/build em

The OP asked how to adjust the parking/E brake , NOT how to adjust the self adjusting rear brakes.

 

Sounds to me like the OP wants the Parking brake/Emergency brake to work when he pulls the lever, instead of making the handle harder to pull.


I'm sorry if I come off that way, I hear people suggesting to adjust the handle so many times and that does nothing to make the parking brake work better, the correct way would be to adjust the parking brake. The adjustments you see for the handle are for the one off chances where the handle is out of spec. Chances are you will never have to adjust that handle. Even self adjusting rear brakes need to be adjusted even under normal use, even more so if you don't use the parking brake as you're supposed to.

 

Applying the parking brake will do the same thing as manually adjusting the star wheel behind the drum. Unless for some reason it is stuck. Take the drum off first and make sure every thing is greased with high temp grease. If your drums are worn, you might need to adjust the star wheel to move the shoes in first to pull the drum off.

Also what REALLY helps if you adjusting the star wheel is to go buy the right lever tool, trust me this works way better than just using a screw driver, it doesn't slip off as easy and is less frustrating. The tool is cheap and well worth the money, looks like a small double ended pry bar, about 6" long.

 

Yeah, the the parking brakes should stay well adjusted, but a lot of automatic drivers out there rarely use their parking brake, which leads to the need of having the brakes adjusted. I also agree about the greasing of the brakes, but a lot of people don't know what areas need to be greased.

I have almost every brake tool a mechanic would need, I'm a mechanic, and I build race cars for a hobby, but I don't think the OP would need to buy this tool considering I have my adjuster spoons and I rarely use them, even for my xB.