Hi everyone. The emergency brake on my 96 850 has not worked for a few months now. I thought it was the rear shoes but I recently completely replaced my rear brakes. I tightened the screw in the center console and that seems fine. Im not sure if maybe we missed a step when doing the rear brakes? Or if there is another issue?

Any advice or suggestions would be really appreciated. Thank you!

 

https://www.volvoclub.org.uk/tech/se...rakeSystem.pdf

 

can you tell if you are getting any cable movement to the wheel? there are cable sections in the rear which can corrode and bind up... Had to replace my cables recently - what only 19 years of service life?

 

The shoes have to be adjusted and the cable has to move. Check those two. The adjustment at the shoes is in the document I linked, just about the first thing.

 

I would replace the cable and the pads. I believe fcp sells Bosch for under $40. I read somewhere on the forum that pads are a lifetime part since it doesn't get used all of that often. While that maybe true, they will "dry out" from the age. I just replaced mine and they fell off as soon as I took the rotor off. The actual pad felt like old plastic that I could easily break with my hands, see picture below. My ebrake still doesn't work after replacing the pads so I'm assuming that the cable is seized, most of these cars are around 20 years old now so it's to be expected

 

Even if you replace all that, it still has to be adjusted or it won't work.

 

Agree that you should do both the shoes and the cables to the wheels. After installing the new pads you will need to adjust the emergency brake shoes at each wheel. there's a slot with a rolling adjuster - use a screw driver to adjust until the pads put drag on the wheel. Then you can adjust at the hand brake lever to get the slack out of the cables - should take about 4-6 clicks to set the brake.

 

I replaced my rear brakes and emergency pads at the same time and was barely able to fit the rotor over the pads even with the adjustment all the way down. Sometimes they squeak especially after I leave the city with a lot of potholes (DC)I'm still getting no resistance from the emergency brake lever. How many cables are there? Is it just one or is there a splitter?

 

Yeah as I recall, reinstalling the shoes for the ebrake took some patience - "spring loaded" comes to mind. There should be two cables - one per wheel up to the handle.

 

Looks like a pina but great diagram, thank you. I guess I will tackle the cables when I get my abs sensors and Volvo tool for the delta links. Its the only thing keeping me from passing state inspection

 

You're going to need a friend to see if the moving parts are moving.