Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Ok, so I did the rear brakes last night, fitting new discs and parking brake shoes.

I swore a bit trying the get the shoes re-attached until I realised how it could be done but commented to myself that it seemed to be a relatively uncomplicated design. I adjusted the parking brake after refitting the disc by tweaking the adjuster until I could hear the shoes rubbing.

I refitted the wheels this morning and pulled up on the lever - 4 clicks and it's on... fantastic!! I tried to turn the wheel and found - as expected - that the wheel was locked, that is until I rocked the wheel backwards to discover about a centimeter of rotation until it was immobile again. I checked the other side to find the same.

Anyway - I thought back to see if there was anything I could have forgotten but no, as I said the design is very simple with the adjuster at the top horns of the shoe and the actuation lever at the bottom. However I can't remember seeing anything that might be a positive stop for the shoes - the top floats around the adjuster and the bottom appears to be the pivot around which the actuation mech rotates. My quandary is that this doesn't really strike me as being substantial enough for the parking brake to be effective - or have I got something horribly wrong??

G

Four clicks sounds good to me mate. On my '86 944 the handbrake lever comes up and bites at 8 clicks.
I've read on some Porsche Forums that some owners have 10+ clicks on the handbrake

I've tried to make mine better with less clicks by adjusting the little wheel through the inspection hole with a screwdriver, but without much success.

I've love to get the discs off and have a better look, see how much material is on the shoes, etc. But the 4 (2 each side) cross head screws are seized!.....Think I'll have to try an impact screwdriver on them. Did yours undo easily?

Cheers,
Kev.

Yup - mine needed 'persuasion' to come out but are fine now ...

I'm obviously hoping for too much because the brakes even with new discs/hubs and shoes are still shite, maybe they'll bed in a little as we go along, but I'm still leaving it in gear when I park ...

G

Okey dokey. If I have any success in the future I'll let you know

Did you do a dry build on the bench to check the shoes are concentric? Did you also adjust, operate a few times, then spin the wheels and then adjust again?

mine works rather well and meets mot requitements.

Yes, in so far as the hub was still on the car,but the shoes matched the old ones and fittedthe hub properly... as i said, the design looks almost too simple.

I might just pull one of the hubs later just to be sure I've not done something silly..

Could be as simple are on of the retaining pins has come out? I remember them being a pain yo fit! When i first got mine it was terrible. When i striped it down a retaining pub had snapped so one shoe was free to move about as it please. Once it was retained the free play was removed.

Did you ever solve this? I had a similar issue, it turned out that the garage I took it to get the handbrake cables fitted had fitted the actuating levers the wrong way round. They fit either way, but only work properly one way.

What are shoe retaining springs like? In my first S2 one broke before being followed by all three of them! Both cars also only have 4 clicks on the lever as per the Porsche manual method of adjustment, which worked very well for me. Adjusting the shoes with the disc is situ was simple but I did require light to be shone down the disc adjustment hole .

No, mine are still crap and I've got into the habit of always leaving the car in gear when parked, but I might have a look at the orientation of the actuating levers as I didn't realise they were directional...

G

Yes, I thought it didn't matter until I couldn't get mine through the MOT! After leaving it to the garage, who failed miserably, I pieced together that they are directional from http://www.9ss1.dk/porsche944/garage/vol3/vol3.html and the Haynes manual, which shows a picture of the other side I think. O/S was difficult to get the access to flip over the lever, without disconnecting handbrake cable.