Parking Brake

usually if your parking brake wont hold or is loose it means your rear shoes are out of adjustment. All you have to do is adjust up(tighten) the rear shoes and the parking brake will be fixed.

"Qwest" < wrote

The brake pedal assembly is self adjusting, but the rear park brake shoes are not. What you are describing is so common with the new style rear disk brakes as to almost be an epidemic. The problem stems from the type of retainer that is used to hold the park brake shoes in place. The original retainer would apply too much pressure to the brake shoe and sometimes will hold one or both shoes in contact with the drum section of the rear rotor. Eventually, they wear out, even if you never used the park brake. Then, when you go to use the brake, you can't apply enough pressure to make them work properly.

Best bet is to remove the rear rotors and just check to see if the park brake shoes are worn. It's usually pretty obvious...like this picture:

You can see the left side of the shoe is worn down at the bottom and almost new at the top.

Here is a new shoe with the two types of retainers. Top one is the new style retainer, bottom one is the old style.

If either of the brake shoes is worn, I'd just replace both and install the new style retainers. (They come with the new shoes) There is an adjuster at the brake shoe, you can just adjust it so that the drum just fits over the shoe.

Ian

I think my '99 has this problem.. thanks guys i'll look into it

The 2000 silverado has rear disc/park shoes? Hmmmm. Guess I need to change my responce a little. :) The park shoes are worn out....there :)

Thanks all, I'll probably get to it this weekend becuase I like to use the parking brake rather than the parking gear (would rather replace brakes as opposed to tranny). I will let you know what I find out.

GM has a bulletin on parking brake shoes...Where they prematurely wear out due to a bad retainer clips....The new shoe kits which come seperate not in a pair has the new style retainer....Whats funny is watching someone who never done a sett before trying to get the shoe off its a little tricky... Steve C

Steve-

Thanks for the heads up. Although I must say this was probably the easiest thing I have ever done involving brakes of any kind. This was the first time I have worked on this truck since I got it. It was so easy I didn't even need a manual.

Anyway,I have tested and all seems to be working fine.

Thanks all.

your brake shoes need to be replaced. I am assuming that they are presently adjusted correctly