1. Home
  2. Jeep and Willys (new and old)
  3. 1997 grand cherokee (zj) brake, e-brake questions

1997 grand cherokee (zj) brake, e-brake questions

I replaced rear pads and discs on my zj, which actually turned out much easier than I had thought. In the process, I got to see that on one side there was no braking shoe lining left at all (e-brake shoes inside the disc), on the other side the lining separated from the shoe assembly when I took the rotor off. Searching here / on google, that seems to be a common problem, and I remembered that a couple of months ago I had some bad grinding noise from the rear wheels for a couple of seconds twice, it may be that was the time when the lining separated and got chewed up inside the rotors...

When trying the e-brake, it hardly worked at all, as expected. -- I must admit I hadn't noticed earlier, since I'm not usually using the parking brake.

So I got parking brake shoes and put them in -- quite a pain without proper tools (springs), but I managed. However, I went very loose on the adjustment as I didn't want to screw it up and get the brakes to permanently drag. Now the parking brake is still working only marginally when the lever is pulled all the way and I suppose I have to adjust it for real. I understand the basic procedure, jack up the car, adjust through the backing plate until drag and then ease off a little. But I still have some questions:

Is adjusting the actual brakes all I need, or do I need to adjust the cable length, too?

Since the star wheels are most of the way in, they aren't really very well accessible through the slot in the backing plate, if at all. I suppose that's just normal?

Is an adjusting tools necessary, or will a screwdriver do the job?

I forgot to take note which way the adjusting bolt/star wheel assembly goes, so at reassembly time I just picked a direction. Does it matter whether the wheel / bolt part is on the front vs the rear? The inaccessibility problem through the slot mentioned above exists both ways.

Reply to
kaig
Loading thread data ...

Ouch!

To start off, there is a right and a left 'star wheel' They must be in the proper side or they will just fall out possible jamming the rear wheel up.

The star wheel also has to line up with the adjusting clip that hits them to turn them for automatic adjustment. This clip also prevents the star wheel from turning backward and has to be lifted with a second screwdriver to back it off at the end of the procedure.

The star wheel is usually on the back side of the bolt or the side the adjuster cable runs on and should go click click click when you turn it.

Normally you only adjust the main lever cable when you install a new cable. The e-brake adjustment is then done with the star wheel.

Yes you can just use a screwdriver(S).

Good luck!

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Reply to
Mike Romain

Thanks, I didn't mess up left side vs right side (unless they were already wrong to start with). However, I guess my brake is less complicated than what you're thinking of. It's just the parking brake, running inside the "drum" of the rotor. It doesn't have any auto-adjustment, I'm quite sure of that.

This site I googled may help to visualize things:

formatting link

Reply to
kaig

Ok, they are only 'manual' brakes then by the sounds of it so they would need adjusting when you notice the lever moves too far.

That is very strange, but hey...

If I were to guess because there is no self adjuster to line up to, I would still put the star wheel to the back side just because that's the way the 'full' brake set works....

I'm sure there must be someone else here who knows for sure.

And just FYI, I have given up on the 'glued on' pads and disks because I 'always' have over 50% wear left on the suckers when they let loose. One pair was just sitting with about 1000 miles or less on them and all

4 fell apart. This was also a chrysler product. Cheap crap.

I now go looking for pads that use rivets to hold them on.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's Canadian Off Road Trips Photos: Non members can still view! Jan/06
formatting link
(More Off Road album links at bottom of the view page)
Reply to
Mike Romain

Just to finish this up, I adjusted the brakes yesterday through that hole in the backing plate (what a pain), and the parking brake is working fine now. Initially it would grab strongly on the second click already, but I backed off the adjustment a little more, just to be sure it's not dragging when the parking brake is released.

Reply to
kaig

Thanks for the follow up.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Reply to
Mike Romain

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.