GRadually my parking brake has become less effective. At this point when I pull the lever it pulls all the way to the top and does not hold the car. Is there an adjustment to tighten the cable by the lever or do I need to adjust the pads too?

 

It is adjustable, both at the lever and at the wheels. There is a hole in the brake rotor to allow adjustment of the brake shoes, and, there is some adjustment available on the lever itself. Best to do it right and set both correctly. Try this tech-session article:

http://www.tech-session.com/kb/index..._v2&id=118&c=4

Good Luck!

 

Cool, I have been having this problem as well. I've never really heard of a 944 parking brake being that strong, should it hold the car alone on a steep good size hill?

 

I pulled the rear wheels on my 924S and adjusted the brake shoes. Went from almost no brakes to great brakes at 2-3 clicks of the parking brake handle. I didn't have to adjust the cable at all. Use a flashlight to see if you are turning the star adjuster in the right dirrection.

 

Yes, it should hold. When adjusted properly, the parking brake is very effective.

 

Cool! I needed to do this too, and the instructions on Clark's Garage were sans-pictures, so I was stumped Thanks for the link Skip! It worked great.

 

Impeccable timing, I have the car on jacks and I'm doing this right now. I'm just a little confused about that adjuster... Are you supposed to stick a flathead into the hole and adjust it by sliding it up or down? Which way is tightening it? Are both sides adjusted separately?

 

Yeah, looks like you use a large flathead. It looks like one end is threaded bolt, so rotating it upward is making weaker. Downard pushes the pad out more, so it's stronger. Both sides have an adjustment, so they are seperate.

 

hmm, I didnt check the other side.... are you positive?

I found that rotating the pinion upward expanded the caliper. I tried to adjust my handbrake nut, but both were rusted SOLID, i used penetrating oil, vice grips & a 12in crecent wrench... didnt budge...

I hate corrosion

 

I'm almost positive that one side gets tight going up, and the other gets tight going down...at least that's how my car is. I want to say the left wheel's star tightens going up, and the right wheel's star tightens going down. Yah, that makes sense, because the threading will probably be towards the front of the car on that star's shaft.... so they both screw in towards the front of the car, but since you're accessing it from opposite sides of the adjuster, you rotate them in "opposite" directions. Hope that made sense.

 

Yeah, I was thinking that they would have put the threads facing the rear of the car on the opposite side.