I swapped my rear pads/rotors for new stuff, and now the parking brake does not engage properly. It used to hold the car at 3-4 clicks, but now it goes ALL the way up and does not hold the car!

How do I adjust it?

 

There's a little screw that you turn, its under the front end of the ebrake boot thingy, there' a little hole to access it. BTW- according to the owners manual I think its supposed to go up like 7 or 8 (or maybe even more) clicks to hold the car. If its only 2 or 3 clicks you risk having your pads rub.

 

THanks for the quick reply. It has seemed to adjust itself to about 7-8 clicks, which is perfect.

BUT this bothers me: When I release the parking brake and spin the rear wheel, there is a lot of resistance. Also, when creeping at slow speeds, I can hear a slight scraping noise (I think the pads are touching). Anyway, if I loosen that screw under the e-brake boot, will it make the pads go out further and not drag? Or is a little amouint of drag normal with new pads until they break in? Thanks

 

sounds like the rear caliper is not letting go. did you screw-in the piston, or did you try and macho it in??

for the e-brake, did you put together the rears correctly? i remember having to do some major pulling

 

make sure all your nuts & bolts are tight. i had the same prob & was pullin my hair trying to figure it out. turns out 2 slightly loose bolts caused the caliper to sit @ an angle . im just glad it was something that simple.

 

Yea I turned it in, it took a lot of force, but it went in. One thing that bothered me was that there is a little bump on the back of the brake pads, and it seems to contact the piston in the caliper. WHat I did was line one of the notches in the piston to fit over the bump. Was that the right thing to do? The piston boot still looks funny sitting over the bump.

 

YES, by all means that is the right thing to do (line up the bump with the piston)

I've screwed this up 2 times already, gotta do another rear brake job soon now that my rear pads are fading into near-uselessness...

 

correct me if im wrong but i thought that piston turns when it is compressed

 

yes it does. You know what I think happens. I believe the e-brake self adjsuts.

What I did was assemble everything back together, and when I spun the rotor, it spun totally freely. Then I went and yanked the e-brake because I wanted to put the wheel back on without it spinning around. However, I hadn't set the piston in place yet by pumping the brakes. I think this calibrated the e-brake wrong.

I am going to take it apart, recess the piston again, and then try it once more.

 

The more I think about it, the wierder that little notch becomes. That notch then prevents the piston from turning while compressing/decompressing. Is that the proper thing to do? Doesn't really make sense to me.

 

Ok, here is the new prognosis. On my Jetta, the rear discs drag a little from the facotry (I checked). I assume this is normal for rear disc brakes. I went back, recompressed the rear pistons, assembled everything back together, and then pumped the brakes. This set the rear piston, THEN I pulled up the ebrake. This time, there is very minimal drag, akin to the Jetta's. So I think my theory of the ebrake self-calibrating could be correct.

One strange note: Why is it so hard to pull off the rear caliper? I had to give it a big helping hand with a piece of wood and a hammer. It seems that the piston really hugs the pads. It's not like this on the front! What gives?

 

yeh i had the same problem w/ mine. thought it was kinda wierd