# Hand/E Brake Didn't Work.



## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

You will have to research that How to destroy your E/Brake Thread,or write one ...HAHa I could't resist ...If I recall correctly ,,,X wrote it !

Are you near the Hills of San Jose .... I read real good ,just have problems writing posts 
DRunk .


----------



## sciphi (Aug 26, 2011)

Smurfenstein said:


> Or are my rear drums in dire need of an adjustment?


Nailed it. Adjust them, and your e-brake will hold the car just fine.


----------



## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

I second the drum adjustment. Drum brakes do need to be periodically adjusted.


----------



## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

We all know Smurf loves Busting his knuckles adjusting those rear drum brakes .

Question How does the hand lever in the cruze activate the rear drum brakes ? now you have me running this down and it is your car that has the faulty brake lever ....


----------



## sciphi (Aug 26, 2011)

brian v said:


> We all know Smurf loves Busting his knuckles adjusting those rear drum brakes .
> 
> Question How does the hand lever in the cruze activate the rear drum brakes ? now you have me running this down and it is your car that has the faulty brake lever ....


There's a steel cable that runs under the car from the e-brake to the drums. Put tension onto it and it in turn tightens the shoes against the drum. When the shoes aren't adjusted out far enough, the e-brake mechanism cannot tighten the drums enough to hold the car since it's taking all its range of motion simply to move the shoes out, and has no movement left to tighten them enough.


----------



## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

The hand brake lever pulls a cable that splits into two cables. Each of these cables push the same brake shoes as the regular hydraulics. If these shoes are too far away from the drums the handbrake can't pull the cable far enough to engage the shoes. This also results in the rear brakes, which should provide something over a third of your normal braking forces, in not working properly. The short term result of rear shoes being too far from the drums is the front end of the car nose-diving during hard braking. The long term result of this is premature wear and early replacement of the front brake shoes.

The other possibility which I have run into on other cars is that the handbrake cable has stretched, but this usually takes a long time and I don't think any US/Canada Cruzen are old enough for this to have occurred yet.


----------



## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

Mechanical , Not Hydraulic ,,,Now to let the cat out of this bag , smurf,, alias Justin will learn and he made me 
Proud of him showing the hand craftmanship of the interior of his cruzen !


----------



## Maxzillian (Sep 16, 2012)

Shouldn't these cars have self adjusting drums? I don't think I've owned a vehicle that didn't have that feature and while a few in the past did not work, they were also over 20 years old with non-OEM parts. Some adjustments got the mechanisms working properly.

I have noticed on my car that sometimes the brake pedal will suddenly have less free-play and this repeatedly occurs and then fades away over the span of a few months. I would assume that is an indication that the drum adjustment mechanism is ratcheting correctly.


----------



## sciphi (Aug 26, 2011)

Maxzillian said:


> Shouldn't these cars have self adjusting drums? I don't think I've owned a vehicle that didn't have that feature and while a few in the past did not work, they were also over 20 years old with non-OEM parts. Some adjustments got the mechanisms working properly.
> 
> 
> 
> > This is my 3rd car with rear drum brakes. I've never had drums self-adjust. They've always needed manual adjustment.


----------



## Smurfenstein (Nov 16, 2011)

obermd said:


> The hand brake lever pulls a cable that splits into two cables. Each of these cables push the same brake shoes as the regular hydraulics. If these shoes are too far away from the drums the handbrake can't pull the cable far enough to engage the shoes. This also results in the rear brakes, which should provide something over a third of your normal braking forces, in not working properly. The short term result of rear shoes being too far from the drums is the front end of the car nose-diving during hard braking. The long term result of this is premature wear and early replacement of the front brake shoes.
> 
> The other possibility which I have run into on other cars is that the handbrake cable has stretched, but this usually takes a long time and I don't think any US/Canada Cruzen are old enough for this to have occurred yet.


That could explain why I had to replace my front brake pads at 35-38K miles. I have yet to adjust the rear drums from factory, I guess they're really far off by now.


----------



## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Maxzillian said:


> Shouldn't these cars have self adjusting drums? I don't think I've owned a vehicle that didn't have that feature and while a few in the past did not work, they were also over 20 years old with non-OEM parts. Some adjustments got the mechanisms working properly.
> 
> I have noticed on my car that sometimes the brake pedal will suddenly have less free-play and this repeatedly occurs and then fades away over the span of a few months. I would assume that is an indication that the drum adjustment mechanism is ratcheting correctly.


Our drums are self adjusting within limits. The problem is that they only self adjust when using the brakes in reverse and most of us don't drive in reverse that much. Once the drums are out of their adjustment range they won't come back into adjustment in without intervention.


----------



## Maxzillian (Sep 16, 2012)

obermd said:


> Our drums are self adjusting within limits. The problem is that they only self adjust when using the brakes in reverse and most of us don't drive in reverse that much. Once the drums are out of their adjustment range they won't come back into adjustment in without intervention.


I can see how if they get too far out of range that the adjuster may stop working, but I believe a properly functioning system should never get that far. Unless someone always pulls through parking spots and has a driveway with a separate entrance and exit, they should reverse enough for the adjusters to function.

I have a 1985 C10 that never needs adjustment and my 1989 Cherokee I used to own worked fine after I took the seized adjuster apart and lubricated the threads. If a Cruze isn't adjusting, and especially if you use the parking brake, I would take it to the dealer for service.

By what Smurfenstein described concerning the handle not clicking as it was pulled up speaks to me that the locking mechanism in the handle may be sticking. Whether or not the rear brakes were adjusted should have had no effect on the handle locking mechanism.


----------



## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

I don't notice my ECO's handbrake clicking as I pull it up, but it definitely holds in place until I press the release lever.


----------



## Smurfenstein (Nov 16, 2011)

obermd said:


> I don't notice my ECO's handbrake clicking as I pull it up, but it definitely holds in place until I press the release lever.


Its more of a Drum Bum [noise maker] sound, but just loud enough to be audible.


----------



## sciphi (Aug 26, 2011)

Maxzillian said:


> I can see how if they get too far out of range that the adjuster may stop working, but I believe a properly functioning system should never get that far. Unless someone always pulls through parking spots and has a driveway with a separate entrance and exit, they should reverse enough for the adjusters to function.


The problem with the Cruze is that for a long time, and maybe is true today, I don't know if Lordstown or their supplier changed it, the drums were not adjusted anywhere close to correctly from the factory. IIRC it took 17 "clicks" of the adjuster mechanism on one side and 14-15 on the other to get the drum brakes adjusted the first time. Other people have reported similar things. 

I've also seen no evidence that once properly adjusted, the drum brakes will then self-adjust. I've had to adjust the drum brakes by hand 3 times now. 

Just so you know it's not a GM thing, our Fit uses a identical mechanism for adjusting the drums. I've never seen that car keep its drum brakes self-adjusted. It's needed me to manually adjust the drum brakes about 4-5 times now. 

As far as I'm concerned, this whole "self-adjusting drum brake" thing is a myth. They might have really self-adjusted back in the day. On today's cars, it doesn't work. Manual adjustment is still very much necessary.


----------



## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Smurfenstein said:


> Its more of a Drum Bum [noise maker] sound, but just loud enough to be audible.


The handbrake lever is actually a ratchet gear similar to: 









The clicking sound you hear is the pawl tooth clicking into each tooth on the ratchet plate as you pull the handle up.


----------



## Maxzillian (Sep 16, 2012)

sciphi said:


> The problem with the Cruze is that for a long time, and maybe is true today, I don't know if Lordstown or their supplier changed it, the drums were not adjusted anywhere close to correctly from the factory. IIRC it took 17 "clicks" of the adjuster mechanism on one side and 14-15 on the other to get the drum brakes adjusted the first time. Other people have reported similar things.
> 
> I've also seen no evidence that once properly adjusted, the drum brakes will then self-adjust. I've had to adjust the drum brakes by hand 3 times now.
> 
> ...


Fair enough, admittedly I bought my car used with 17,500 on the clock and am now up to 30,000. It's entirely possible my brakes may have been adjusted before I took ownership of the car and I'm lucky enough for my adjusters to work.

That said, I am curious just how many clicks my brakes would take for the pads to begin to make contact. I would imagine the self-adjusters would leave a fair amount of clearance versus manually adjusting the brakes on a periodic basis.


----------

