Adjusting e brake with wheel studs

[mldyanks213]

hey guys, i installed wheel studs a little while ago and adjusted the parking brake at the time but wondering how im going to adjust it in the future when I do rear brakes. any ideas?

[LockDots]

If you already adjusted it properly before your stud conversion, chances are you won't have to again for a very long time. Other than that you have two choices. Pull the rotor off, adjust, put it back on and test, OR remove one of the studs to do it through the stud hole, but then you have to chase and clean the threads to thread the stud back on afterwards.

If you prefer to do neither, adjust via the cables at the parking brake handle.

[TostitoBandito]

I have studs and had to do this when I had the parking brakes off during my suspension rebuild. I basically just took the rotor on and off a bunch as I got the adjuster somewhat close. It doesn't have to be perfect. You just don't want it providing resistance while spinning, but at the same time to be relatively close (like several clicks of the adjuster away from slowing it down). The fine tuning can be done on the cables attached to the brake lever to pull up any slack and make sure they're engaged by 4 clicks up or whatever the Bentley procedure was.

[blckstrm]

hey guys, i installed wheel studs a little while ago and adjusted the parking brake at the time but wondering how im going to adjust it in the future when I do rear brakes. any ideas?

I don't think it's that hard to pull a stud, but that's just me.

[TostitoBandito]

I didn't want to hassle with cleaning/chasing all the threads and everything. It's probably a push in terms of time.

[MauiM3Mania]

Adjust your e-brake, as needed, whenever you replace your wheel studs. Wheel studs are a maintenance item on a car that has wheels changed often (race car, not stance machine).

[tvcasualty]

None of you guys have ever owned a vehicle with drum brakes I take it.....

[TostitoBandito]

I have, but never touched them. After completely disassembling my parking brakes though, I'm pretty certain I now know how to work on any drum brake. It's not that bad, but the final springs are annoying to get back into place given that you have to stretch them to get them to hook in and they require quite a bit of force.

[tvcasualty]

I have, but never touched them. After completely disassembling my parking brakes though, I'm pretty certain I now know how to work on any drum brake. It's not that bad, but the final springs are annoying to get back into place given that you have to stretch them to get them to hook in and they require quite a bit of force.

Yep. Besides wheel cylinders for the hydraulics it's the same thing.

[blckstrm]

I have, but never touched them. After completely disassembling my parking brakes though, I'm pretty certain I now know how to work on any drum brake. It's not that bad, but the final springs are annoying to get back into place given that you have to stretch them to get them to hook in and they require quite a bit of force.

Haha - yes and yes and yes. As bad as the rear wheel bearing operation is, the parking brake is half the trouble. I'd love to never have to touch them again.

As an aside, I think it's odd that guys with track cars often ditch their parking brake - aka emergency brake.

[TostitoBandito]

It makes some sense. One, it's a few pounds of unsprung weight. Also, it's generally discouraged to use your parking brake at all during track use. Probably doesn't matter as much with a drum-style brake, but for parking brakes which grip the disc of the rotor you don't want to do that when your rotor is hundreds of degrees so it can melt all over your rotor and leave a nice deposit. If my car was trailered or only ever driven to/from the track, I wouldn't have a problem removing it. It would never be used.

[Mklock]

Hahaha, Tost, I get people allll the time...WOW you just pulled your Ebrake after a session...or anything else. I'm like yeah, got money to burn haha.

[blckstrm]

It makes some sense. One, it's a few pounds of unsprung weight. Also, it's generally discouraged to use your parking brake at all during track use. Probably doesn't matter as much with a drum-style brake, but for parking brakes which grip the disc of the rotor you don't want to do that when your rotor is hundreds of degrees so it can melt all over your rotor and leave a nice deposit. If my car was trailered or only ever driven to/from the track, I wouldn't have a problem removing it. It would never be used.

It's the EMERGENCY part I'm talking about, not the parking bit. I assume everyone knows not to use their parking brake after a session. And I'd hope most people never have to use them on track, either. But to me it's kind of like getting rid of your fire extinguisher because it weighs 5 pounds and you never use it...

[TostitoBandito]

It's the EMERGENCY part I'm talking about, not the parking bit. I assume everyone knows not to use their parking brake after a session. And I'd hope most people never have to use them on track, either. But to me it's kind of like getting rid of your fire extinguisher because it weighs 5 pounds and you never use it...

Yeah I hear you. In certain cases you may be able to strategically/carefully use the e-brake to bleed some speed before you exit the track, but I'm not sure I'd want to just yank the thing up at 120 mph. Maybe one rear wheel locks and the other doesn't, which causes you to spin or veer off the track. Even with a total loss of brake pressure, it may be more desirable to try to steer the car into the grass/gravel as opposed to causing unpredictable things to happen to the rear end and having no idea where you'll end up. I'm not a racer so I don't know, but I'm sure those guys have some sort of standard procedure for those situations.

[mldyanks213]

Mine are adjusted for now. When I need to do rear brakes I'll just get it close then put the rotor on. I don't want to remove a stud because I would have to heat it up. Red locktite..I don't feel like going through all that haha