Making the handbrake stronger, 2002 Tahoe

That was certainly the key to keeping them working, but as you say, the customers -for the most part - didnt use the parking brake. When those rear brakes stopped contributing, the front brake discs soon warped or the pads were ablated away. It just wasnt a practical design from GM

I lived in Colorado and had manual trans cars all the time. I put a line locker on them. These are sold for drag race staging but they make a great Hill Holder too. I don't know if they would be compatible with ABS.

"ROY BRAGG" wrote in message news:3Feri.1157$vW.244@trnddc08...

If they dragged and ate a rotor, I'll bet it was the outside pad that was wasted and not the inner pad, and that is an indicator the slides froze and wouldn't let the caliper move when the service brakes were released. Its one of the reasons I don't like rear disk brakes, Everything is exposed and for some reason the rear calipers get nailed with all the garbage off the road. But still the biggest issue with the design on your Lumina, and all GM rear disk of that era except the Corvette, was out of adjustment condition resulting in the two piece caliper being pulled apart by hydraulic pressure and then leaking, resulting in a parking brake that didn't hold, and a low spongy brake pedal. It was a great design in theroy, and if people really saw what the park mechansim in a automatic tranny was they would never not use the parking brake, and the out of adjustment aspect would never have come into play.. Most people dont even realize that the original automatic trannies didnt have park, just reverse, neutral, low and drive. Park was added because people would shut it off in drive, then start it and hit what ever was in front of them so park was added, and then sometime after that the nuetral safety switch was added as well. when park was added, parking brake useage took a nose dive. We be a lazy animal. It shouild be noted that the Ford design of the same error was a resound flop as well with its own issues. Fixed mount calipers require a seprate parking brake mechanism, and because they are fixed mount, dont have slides to fail or freeze. But then again Mercedes and Volvo loved fixed calipers back then and you could hear them 5 miles away when they hit the brakes. Fixed mount calipers have major issues with harmonics, which is why Mercedes gives a discard thickness, and recommends rotor replacement rather than machining.

Whitelightning