How much difficulty in replacing parking brake shoes? I have a 2002 3500 and the parking brake goes all the way to the floor and still no brake. The truck was bought used with 137,000 miles and it was that way when I bought it. Do you think a novice could do this job with just ordinary tools. Thanks.

Check the shoes first. My parking brake has gone all the way to the floor since I took ownership back in 2001. I have never figured out how to adjust it. There have been a few threads on how to do it but I have met with little success. I stopped using the parking brake long ago. My shoes look Brand new as you might imagine....:D

haven't had my hd rears apart yet, but my yukon xl has the ebrake shoes on the inside of the rear rotors. you need to remove the caliper, remove the rear rotors and usually replace the rear shoe band (they always seem to be wore out, most times gouging out the drum surface in the process and causing you to buy new rotors and ebrake bands). if you're luckier than me, after removeing the rotor, there is a adjustment wheel in there and you can adjust just like the old drum brakes. after looking under the hd, i think this is the proper procedure. if you ask me , this is an assanine system of adjusting the ebrake!!Hope this helps, and if i'm, wrong i'm sure someone will correct me(please let me be wrong!!)):h

It is kind of a ***** to replace the shoes on a dually, need to pull the calipers/axles/hubs/bearings to access, then replace the axle seals while you are there because they are why the e-brake will not hold. E-brake shoes are like 200 bucks also IIRC...

My understanding is that GM is going back to drum brakes with all the trouble they have had with the rear-disc e-brakes. The only thing I know you can do is replace the shoes and what usually happens is that the drum will have a lip wore into it which makes it impossible to adjust which means replace the whole disk/hub/e-brake-drum asmby which they don't give away unfortunately. :-( I also understand that it's worse for the automatic folks since they typically don't use the e-brake at all and when they do, it won't work, usually found at the inspection station. I believe there is some kind of design flaw which makes the shoes wear on the bottom continuously when the vehicle is driven which causes the drums to wear leaving the lip and wearing out the shoes. And the adjustment tolerances are extremely small which make it (nearly) impossible to get right if the drum has been worn at all. It's about a $400 parts alone job. Take to a dealer for the average Joe, and it's a $1000+ job. Have seen a few co-workers get caught up in this...

Tim

The 2500HD/3500 and SUV's will retain rear disc, only 1500 pickup will return to drums. The reason had nothing to do with the parking brake, but the fact the rotors have a serious rust problem because of not being cleaned well enough when braking.

The 2500HD/3500 uses a different setup for the parking brake than the 1500/SUV's. The 1500/SUV's use a parking brake shoe that is like a 3/4 circle. The 2500HD/3500 uses individual shoes in the rear simular to a standard drum brake. They adjust pretty much the same as standard drum brakes. However, generally, the rotor is not the most friendly unit to come off, so be prepaired for that being stuck.

i don't know about you all but we use our park brake all of the time even with the auto trans .... and one foot on the throttle and one foot on the brake :)

I bought some Promaster e-brake shoes for mine for about $30, although I haven't had a chance to put them on yet.............

So I have to ask this....Who really uses them? I seriously have not used my Parking brake since a week after I picked my truck up. It is kind of like that lever on the left side of the steering column...When you pull it down or push it up there is the silly clicking noise that seems to activate some flashing lights in the instrument cluster...Darn thing drives me nuts....):h .

I use mine all the time, especially when I load my equipment back on the trailer. I have to adjust them about every 3 or 4 months though.

JMB, How do you adjust the parking brake?

I use my e-brake all the time. Haven't had a problem in almost three years of use, and almost 98,000 KLMs.

Use mine all the time, works good now. Found out a while ago why it wasn't holding to well. Leaking axle seals which toasted the shoes on both sides. New shoes and drums cleaned all looked after under warranty.

It is kind of a ***** to replace the shoes on a dually, need to pull the calipers/axles/hubs/bearings to access, then replace the axle seals while you are there because they are why the e-brake will not hold. E-brake shoes are like 200 bucks also IIRC...
Yea... The parking brake is a biatch!
I first ran into this problem on my '00 half-ton. An adjustment did get it past the 1st year safety inspection. The adjustment is very limited - its a star-wheel adjustment between the shoes. There is a service bulletin about a problem with the parking brake wearing down during normal driving. A retaining clip needs to be installed. I'm not sure when this was fixed on production vehicles.

Adjusting the cable is almost always not useful. I learned that one the hard way, too.

The same $#@! procedure needs to be done on the 2500 & 3500 series as with the 1500. This means that the drive axles must be pulled to access the parking brake for service. The stealer wanted just under $300 for a parking brake service, not to include anything involving disk brakes. That was ~4 years ago. :mad:

we use our e-brake (parking brake for us) as we live on a hill and if we dont use it it is hard to get out of park. what we do is when we stop put on the parking brake put shifter in neutral let off brake pedal and then put in park. have had to do this for 11/2 years. sometimes wife couldn't get truck out of park. oh well.

dogboy

you can adjust the e-brake on the back side of the cover plate if I remember correctly.