anyone know how to adjust the parking break at then drum brakes on our cars? Mines feeling loose and im changing the breaks back there anyways.
thanks
mike d*

I had the same problem and fixed it. If you look underneath the car, about a foot in from the drivers side, about underneath the drivers seat, you should see the parking break/emergency break cable. Theres a bolt like deal with two nuts on it, loosen one nut, and then thighten the other to the tension you want the cable at, then tighten that other nut and that nut will keep the other nut in place (yes sounds confusing ). Once youre down there its easy to figure out. It took me two trys to get it to the tension i liked. It should take 10 minutes to do, i used two small size crecent wrenches to do it.

hope this helps

Drum Brakes are auto adjusting. Do your rear brakes, then manually adjust them using the adjuster wheel through the access hole and a screw driver. Then, once the brakes are properly primed and pressurized, make several firm stops while in reverse. this will adjust the rear brakes properly. Since the parking brake is a mechanical brake using a cable, once your rear brakes are mechanically adjusted through the above technique, the parking brake will automatically be adjusted as well. The only exception would be if your cable was stretched or frayed and about to break.

Disclaimer: I have not done the rear brakes on my Bonneville yet. The above thechnique is typical for all drum brakes. There may be minor differences between the Bonneville brakes and the countless others I have done--but I am not aware of any. If I am wrong, please let me know so that I do not give out bad information in the future.

Thanks

In all my years of driving cars with auto-adjusting rear drum brakes, I have never found the self-adjusters to work!!! I have always had to manually adjust the rear brakes. Once this is done, the Emergency Brake(aka-Parking Brake) is also adjusted. I would NOT advise adjusting the cable unless the E-Brake pedal is still low AFTER you have adjusted the Rear Brakes. Also, I know this is a real PITA but I remove the wheels/drums when I adjust the rear brakes instead of going thru the backing plate. This way I can see the condition of the brake shoes and check the wheel cylinders for any leaks as well as the drums for wear . I also spray brake cleaner to clean out the residual brake dust.