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12-05-2006, 07:39 PM
The parking brake on my 02 GMC dually quit working at about 35000 miles. I did some investigating and found that there is a recall on this but it does not apply to my truck since I have an automatic transmission. It is the same defect as a manual tran but GM is taking the usual cheap way out and only fixing the absolute minimum (same as injectors).
The really great thing about this is YOU HAVE TO PULL THE AXLES to replace the brake shoes. So I bought new brake shoes and a special hub wrench and was going to replace the shoes myself.
I jacked it up and pulled the wheels off. The service manual says that you must first pull off the disc pad caliper and caliper bracket before the axle will come off. One thing I found out right away was that the disc pad caliper will not come off! The top bolt will not clear the leaf springs. Fortunetly the disc pads can be replaced, if needed, without too much trouble by taking the bottom bolt out and rotating the caliper up.
So the only way to get the caliper off is to remove the caliper bracket. This bracket has two bolts torgued to 221 ft lbs. The top bolt on the bracket has very little clearance because of intereference with the leaf spring. It would clear if there was some way to get it loose. Since it is torqued so high it requires something pretty large to get it off. But there is no way to get a socket wrench on it because there is not enough room between the bolt and the leaf spring. I can get a wrench on it but I would have to use a large cheater bar on it and I don't think the wrench would hold. There certainly is no way to put a torque wrench on it to retorque it.
This is an incredibly poor design. The brakes must have been assembled on the axle before the axle was intstalled in the truck.
Does anyone know how the dealer gets this bracket off or how any ideas on how I can do it? I can't believe that no one else has ever come across this problem but I cannot find any hits on it.
BTW, I got the recall info and found out the fix to keep the shoes from wearing prematurely is a new right hand brake cable. I bought it (about $35) and have already installed it. Did not look too much different from the old one except it had a little stronger spring on one end.
The really great thing about this is YOU HAVE TO PULL THE AXLES to replace the brake shoes. So I bought new brake shoes and a special hub wrench and was going to replace the shoes myself.
I jacked it up and pulled the wheels off. The service manual says that you must first pull off the disc pad caliper and caliper bracket before the axle will come off. One thing I found out right away was that the disc pad caliper will not come off! The top bolt will not clear the leaf springs. Fortunetly the disc pads can be replaced, if needed, without too much trouble by taking the bottom bolt out and rotating the caliper up.
So the only way to get the caliper off is to remove the caliper bracket. This bracket has two bolts torgued to 221 ft lbs. The top bolt on the bracket has very little clearance because of intereference with the leaf spring. It would clear if there was some way to get it loose. Since it is torqued so high it requires something pretty large to get it off. But there is no way to get a socket wrench on it because there is not enough room between the bolt and the leaf spring. I can get a wrench on it but I would have to use a large cheater bar on it and I don't think the wrench would hold. There certainly is no way to put a torque wrench on it to retorque it.
This is an incredibly poor design. The brakes must have been assembled on the axle before the axle was intstalled in the truck.
Does anyone know how the dealer gets this bracket off or how any ideas on how I can do it? I can't believe that no one else has ever come across this problem but I cannot find any hits on it.
BTW, I got the recall info and found out the fix to keep the shoes from wearing prematurely is a new right hand brake cable. I bought it (about $35) and have already installed it. Did not look too much different from the old one except it had a little stronger spring on one end.