91 camry wagon parking brake

[ninja771]

i realized about a week ago my parking brake wont "brake" the car. how do i reset it or what needs to be repaired?

[atobe]

you should check if your rear still has pad left on shoes or disk... if it does then it's just a matter of tighting the cable... there's 1 next to the lever that's a 8mm nut.. and there's also another one underneath the car.. where the 1 cable turns into 2 going to each drum/disk

[Mike Gerber]

Assuming that you have rear drum brakes on this car, to me this is a sign that the rear brake shoes are out of adjustment and need to be manually adjusted. I have found that the self adjusters on the rear drum brakes of Camrys just do not work all that well. Start by leaving the e-brake off. Then you need to remove the rear wheels. Then remove the round rubber plug on the drum. Next rotate the drum so that the hole exposed by removing the rubber plug is near the 12:00 o'clock position. Peer in through the small hole in the drum until you see the star toothed gear. You may have to rotate the drum between the 11:00 and 1:00 o'clock positions to line up with the start toothed gear. Use a slotted screwdriver to turn that gear downward. Rotate the drum frequently (obviously with the screwdriver removed) until you feel the drum drag a bit on the brake shoes. Do the same thing on the other wheel. Now check the operation of the ebrake. It should be considerably tighter. A good service manual will have this porcedure in the drum brake section, and should have some good pictures/diagrams.

Mike

[ninja771]

hey thanks for the help. i adjusted the nut in by the parking brake handle and it works perfect now

[bkbajan]

so my car got towed. I got it back on Friday and realized that my parking brake isn't working like b4.
I read this thread and found the 8mm nut at the back of the lever. I tried tightening it but it would end up going the opposite way..as if it was in a spring. Why is that and how can I get it fixed?

Chris

[ninja771]

well if you go to the back of the owners manual it tells you how. first you have o test it to make sure it actually is messed up. pull it up slowly and it should click 5 to 8 times till you cant pull any more. if its within that range then nothing is wrong with it. and the nut is metric i believe. you might be using the wrong kind of wrench/socket wrench