Just recently when i was working with the panel that contains climate control and all of that stuff, i had to remove it. To do this i needed to put the car in gear with shift lock override. No big deal, put the parking brake on and did so, but the parking brake doesn't work, so the car rolled freely. What do you think i could do to make the parking brake work again?
Thanks, Evan

 

Could be any number of things that are wrong. First thing I would check is the e-brake shoes. Over time, the brake material separates from the metal backing. To check the e-brake shoes, you need to remove the rear brake disks. This involves removing jacking up the car, removing the rear tires, removing the rear calipers, remove the rear disks.

Inside the rear disk you will see two brake shoes. Check to see if the brake material has delaminated from the metal.

From there, check all of the adjustments on the brake cables.

Good luck

 

Thanks... haha sounds like a pain to get to the Shoes.

 

make sure the cables are working.

its not that hard to get at the shoes, just remove the rear brake rotors. what year/model car is this?

 

1992 240 Wagon... i thought removing rotors required removal of calipers... which requires the draining of fluids?

 

you leave the brake hose connected, unbolt the calibers, slide them off the brake rotor, and hang them near by using a wire coat hanger bent appropriately (you do NOT want the calibers weight to hang on the hose). be absolutely sure to NOT STEP ON THE BRAKE PEDAL when the caliber is off the disk.

then, you just have to remove the wheel locator pin (if its even there, or the small bolt some folks use to replace it), and whack the rotor with a rubber mallet a few times to knock it loose from the wheel studs and it should come right off. (the studs go into the hub BEHIND the rotor, the rotor just sits on them and the axle stub, but often rusts on, hence the hammer). stubborn cases might need a good squirt of kroil to free up, but then you have to be sure to degrease everything with brake-kleen before reassembling.

if the rotor is even 50% worn, I'd plan on installing a new one, ditto the rear brake shoes, since you're already there.

 

Ah.. still complex, but better since I wont have to work with bleeding and whatnot. Also, how would you go about checking cables?

 

when you pull up on the parking brake handle, do you feel tension and does it stop before it gets to the top of the ratchet?

get under the back of the car, have someone engage and release the parking brake... the cables are visible in the back, one on each side, you should see them 'tense up' as the parking brake is set (much like a bicycle brake cable).

 

If the brake catches but just doesn't hold completely and the handle comes way up, you might consider pulling the rear ashtray and tightening down the adjustment there. Do it with the brake released.

 

isn't there an adjuster in back inside the 'drum' thats on the inside of the rotor too?

 

sure...they're just miniature drum brakes. Finding the brake shoes new is getting difficult. Perhaps Volvo still has them but I haven't run across them aftermarket. The adjuster at the back of the center e-brake console takes 5 minutes to check out. It won't fix anything...but if the cables have stretched a bit over time, often a turn or two is all that's needed.

 

PN 31262623, 'brake shoe kit', $28 at Tasca, fits 240/740/940/960s 1988-1997

tasca says the PN for the older 240s (OK, 'older' == 1982 for my sample) also substitutes for this same kit, even though tasca doesn't list 1982 as an application.

 

Thanks... ill check the line tension tomorrow... hopefully they just need tightened!

 

fwiw, our 1987 240 with about 400K miles, still has the original P-brake shoes, and they still work fine. they did need a bit of adjusting awhile back.

the first year we had the car (bought new), the P-brake didn't hardly work, then I read in the owners manual where it said to go BACKWARDS and slow/stop the car with the p-brake 3-4 times in a row. so I did. and wow, all the sudden the p-brake worked great. I dunno if that bedded the shoes, or there's some sort of self-adjuster (my dad's old 1960s Valiant had 4 wheel drum brakes that were self adjusting, you had to go backwards and brake a couple times to adjust them).