Hi Guys,

It was pretty quiet in the shop today since it's Christmas week, so I figured I'd finally install my new PBR rear brake shoes that I had sitting on top of my tool chest for the past month.  I had a concern that the drums wouldn't fit on the brake lathe, turns out we had a cone that fit them just fine.

I got it all together but I'd like to know what to do with the upper and lower adjusters and how they relate to each other.  What I did is be sure that the lower "strut" adjuster is fully retracted, and then adjusted out the shoes using the upper "star-wheel" adjuster.

Put it together and on the ground, and drove it home.  It feels fine but something's not quite right.  The drums were only lightly warm when I got home (jumped out and put my hand on them) - so they're not dragging as I'm driving (17 kms on rural roads).   But there's definitely something wrong with the parking brake end of it.  The lever feels very tight.  It only comes up about 3 clicks now instead of the 7-8 clicks before (It should be 5-7 clicks, but the old shoes were worn thin, that's why 8...)   I'm afraid I may break something if I pull the lever up harder.  BUT, I can also "feel" the parking brake through the brake pedal.  If I pull the lever up and down, I can feel it in my foot.  If I depress the brake pedal then pull the parking brake lever, the tension on the cables feels different than if I pull the lever without depressing the brake.

The parking brake doesn't hold as well on the driveway (uphill) anymore.    I had full confidence in the parking brakes before, they were solid.  I could pull the lever and jump out with the engine running on the driveway no problem.  However tonight I pulled the lever and it rolled back when I let go of the pedal.  It rolled back maybe 1 1/2 feet (0.5 metre).  It stopped but I left it in gear just in case.  I DEFINITELY gotta fix this, I just bought a remote starter!  I'm hoping to get to that right after new year's.

So yeah, I know something's messed up with the two adjustments in the drums, did I miss something?  How would I adjust them in relation to each other?

Edit:  I have the service manual, and read through it.  It does look like I did everything right, I found something that said "use a flat end bar to minimize length of strut" in otherwords fully retract it (the lower one), I did... 


Thanks

James

Well I dunno, I looked everywhere, couldn't find any more information.

Put the truck back up on the hoist this evening, pulled the drums off and had a close look, didn't see anything wrong.     I guess that's it, my co-worker tells me it's probably just that the shoes need to be broken in.  So I played with the parking brake a whole lot in the parking lot, stopped, driving forwards, and in reverse.  May have worked.  Got home and it held in the driveway much better, still seems like I have to pull a little too hard but the angle of the lever is right.

James

is most of this stuff in the rear mostly self adjusting....all you gotta do is get the back pads touch ever so slightly...then on your test rin after a couple brake pedal tests the drums should adjust themselves to the best position...never had any trouble doing mine that way

The lack of grip will be the linings bedding-in.

The number of clicks is adjustable.  Take the cover of the parking brake lever.  Operate the footbrake 2 or 3 times quite hard with the engine running.  Lift the parking brake lever quite hard 2 or 3 times.  Count the clicks, and adjust on the nyloc nut which tensions the cable, whlist the brake is off.  Repeat till you get 5 to 7.

Not sure if you are still experiencing problems or not, but this thread may be of help to you. I had similar brake issues w/adjustment as well.

http://www.suzuki-forums.com/1g-1999-2005-vitara-grand-vitara/20222-brake-shoe-install-lessons-learned.html