Emergency Brake Pedal.

[frogland]

I dont think the emergency handbrake pedal has ever been used, the previous owners just kept the vehicule in P.

Ive got an M O T soon and the pedal doesn't latch when I push down on it ?

 Any advice ?

[QinteQ]

Bottom line [reproduced from above date] on the abortion we call a handbrick. If at the end of the day for whatever reason you are not happy there is one last painful strategy and it will be a pain. Drop the car down, take it somewhere for a mile while occasionally pulling the handbrick on and immediately letting it go, do this frequently over the whole mile and you will grind the 4 imperfect leading / trailing edges to perfectly fit your 'in hat'. Then jack up and re adjust the handbrake, that will get you as near as you are going to get to 100% of the whole surface area of the shoe material applied to metal.

 

- car in park

- engine on

- footbrake hard on

- at least 3 or more pulls in quick succession on the handbrick whilst holding the 'pawl' in

- should self adjust via the clockspring

 

If that does not do the self adjust then you are in for the long haul, clockspring below ..........................

 

 http://www.chryslerforum.com/forum/attachments/chrysler-voyager-town-country-21/509d1402662039-my-struggles-gv-handbrake-mot-handbrake-003.jpg

 

[frogland]

Thanks, before giving this a go is it worth an assault of wd40 or would that risk worsening things ?

[mikebh8]

It does help a lot, not on the discks though, check also the caliper, push the actuating lever see if is freely moving.

You have to put a certain amount of pressure, with a chisel or something similar, if it doesn't move or it moves in one direction but then it doesn't come back to initial position, qinetiq's suggestion won't work.

In that case if you're confident with it, the caliper/calipers if they're both seized; need to be removed, cleaned and lubricated.

Hope it helps.

[QinteQ]

It does help a lot, not on the discks though, check also the caliper, push the actuating lever see if is freely moving.

You have to put a certain amount of pressure, with a chisel or something similar, if it doesn't move or it moves in one direction but then it doesn't come back to initial position, qinetiq's suggestion won't work.

In that case if you're confident with it, the caliper/calipers if they're both seized; need to be removed, cleaned and lubricated.

Hope it helps.

DUP

[QinteQ]

Rear handbrick comes after the 'pull adjuster'

 

There are reams of excellent forum advice [here is the original Leedsman authored article] and walkthroughs, and you will need at some point to do a full 'top hat' service. You need to do the usual, don't be shocked to find pistons seized, linings down to rivets, and a disgusting mess. Most people don't do them at all including the garage you paid to do them. Even when they are done you should [once in the GV's lifetime] replace the essential 'small parts bag components' and clean all other surfaces, as in bright metal and lube is the key to starting on the rear foot & parking brake conundrum, its never been cleaned in its lifetime of say 10 years. Next is the (2) after 1 September 2010 requirement for 58% service brake pass test in truth if you spend hours doing it right it will still depend on whether you want to invest heavily in the extra effort mile. - only at that point will you get to the best parking brake efficiency % you can hope to with any vehicle of this weight / type. We are all here to help each other, best of luck frogland.

[QinteQ]

I'm long past the boy racer, well in excess of the 70 years and apart from getting caught once at my grannies aged 19 when I sneaked off route for a for quick scrambled eggs with an army Champ pulling a 680lb 120mm L4 mobile Wombat Cannon and 6 28.3lbs shells by the bobbies I've never been in trouble.

 

I always to purpose uprate the disks & callipers, the rim thing was not my reason for doing it. It was to spend on good braking not good looks. Its strange but I have not yet found for an example only why Brembo 310 disks are sold to the UK but 310 callipers are not, maybe the diff twixt 305 & 315 is an allowable parameter. I am going to do it but I need more info scavenging  ready made larger pistons or 2 or even 4 pot plus higher coefficient of friction pad material upgrades, I don't want to start lug conversion moddin or any other bolt pattern changes.

 

I did my back brakes a in 2015 and they were disgusting. I've said many times on this forums the brakes ..... all of them are a useless and underrated throwback to the American old she brake - pre-disk ratings requirement as is evidenced by the fact that at the same weight of vehicle the Dodge Chrysler Jeep stable enjoy the safety and performance of bigger 310's all round as a minimum from 2008. The 310's have a healthy  aftermarket upgrade supply the 302's never did and 7 years on never will.

 

I've got good Chrysler factory alloys, all with still new[ish] boots that have done less than 1200 miles and I've just spent lotsa lolly on brand new small parts set, new disks, new pads on the rear and intended doing the same for the front this time with uprated slot & drill disks and green stuff pads. It occurs to me that at my age I'm keeping this bus and I will pay for big disks and good pads all round and sell my existing good stuff on local collect for a contribution to my costs before the new pads, disks, shoes have even done 1000 miles. If it comes with cost of having to buy competition alloys that cost about the same as non competition alloys - I'll bite that bullet too.

 

Did the same this Easter on the front end, all new everything brakes, and serviced gearbox & engine including all fluids especially a complete clean out of the 10 year old 'hydroscopic' brake fluid and new stuff in.

[frogland]

After having got close-up to the brakes I can see that an upgrade will definitely be the order of the day at some stage.

I managed to solve my brake problem by rolling the car backwards in Neutral and then pressing the handbrake pedal and it ratcheted !

It should get me through the MOT.

The only thing is that now. I can here a clicking sound when I depress the brake pedal whilst it is in P ? after doing some research apparently this is normal ?

Thanks for all the information.

[frogland]

I presume that when I go through all the hassle of of getting to the back of the engine I should do the calorstat,turbo and egr at the same time ?

[bignev]

Hi there, the noise when you put your foot on the foot brake in Park is the releasing of the gear lever catch. To enable it to change out of Park and into the gears.

 

I was very confused about your phrasing of the pedal not latching when you press down on it, correct - it doesn't and shouldn't.

 

The handbrake LEVER is pulled up. So I wasn't sure you actually had the right car, as some do have a foot operated parking brake.

[QinteQ]

Rolling the car backwards was an inadvertently interesting comment to me.

 

A Story

 

I called the system design she-brakes. Back in the 'big block shooting brake' days when rich America was in the middle of a roads and housing boom new towns just off motorways were built with big wide boulevard's and the roads were deliberately sunk low so drives were up a slope to allow drainage from the property. There was a rash of insurance claims made for 2 1/2 ton cars rolling unattended backwards into traffic so the 'top hat' shoe was redesigned to grab the trailing rather than the leading edge - after all it's a parking brake design not a handbreak. This still exists as far as I'm aware to this day.

[bignev]

Well there you go - that possibly explains why on my first GV, that when I reversed, having not released the park brake, the bugger then started to stick and drag if I used it.

 

So I got into a bad habit of not doing once I eventually sorted the whole lot out.

[QinteQ]

That's owld sods for you bignev, long memories are all 'time earned'.

[bignev]

Hee hee, yep!!