04 impala parking brake???

[peteo101]

ok, so i have an 04 impala with the parking brake shoes inside the rear rotors and today i put new pads and rotors on it and when i put it back together and road tested it, i noticed the parking brake now doesnt hold at all except in neutral on the slightest hill, where before it would hold the car on even the steepest hills after only a few clicks. my questions are (1) did i do anything wrong while reinstalling everything, and (2) how do i adjust the shoes now that they are all out of whack?? any and all help would be great, thanks all

[Z27]

Its time to take it all apart again. There is an adjuster at the bottom of the parking brake shoes to spread the shoe. There is a tool to measure the diameter of the shoe and the drum which I don't have and didn't use. I rotated the adjuster to the point of being able to slide the rotor on. I have also seen adjusters freeze up from rust. At that point I put a couple lugnuts on handtight to hold the rotor and applied the parking brake a couple of times and released it to make sure everything was centered. Then check for any serious drag on the rotor. There is also an adjusting nut on the equalizer. This should be right where the 2 cables attach to the cable coming from the pedal. The nut should be turned until one brake starts to turn and then backed off by one turn. Hope that helps.

[peteo101]

That actually helped a great deal.. i did all of what you said minus turning the equalizer underneath because it was all rusted and i didnt feel like fighting with it, but once i put it back together and set the brake, it was tight as new. Thanks for your help i had no idea parking brake shoes had the adjuster like the old drums did but thanks a ton

[Z27]

That was all from doing brakes on my ZR-2 Blazer and the Impala shop manual. Now all I need to do is fix the e-brake on the wife's Impala.

[peteo101]

yeah it was a piece of cake after realizing that was all i had to do. Good luck - hopefully yours wont be one of the ones frozen up from rust or anything. And thanks again