E Brake adjustment on rear disk brakes

My rear brakes drag. I did a search and found one thing that I need to do and that's to make sure my caliper is centered on the disk.

The instructions for the conversion say that I should also adjust the E Brake at the calipers and that I should look in a repair manual to find out how to do it.

Does anyone know how to do this?

hi Ron
jack up the car and remove one of the wheels. try turning the disk by hand. If it is dragging because the e brake is set to tight you probably won't be able to turn the wheel. Try slacking of the adjustment on the handbrake lever. It should bite after about three clicks from the handbrake. If it's due to the caliper being of centre only one sides' brake pad will be dragging on the disk. You could use a feeler guage or some other thin piece of steel to insert between the pad and the disk to confirm this. If it fits only on one side you will have confirmed that the caliper is of centre. If the problem is that it drags on the oposite side of the caliper bracket you have a more difficult problem to solve, however if the pad is draging on the bracket side you could cut a shim to place between the caliper and the bracket thus moving the caliper in relation to the disk. It is best to use shimstock as a spacer as this wil ensure that the caliper stays perpindicular to the disk.

You should be abe to get shimstock from most nut and bolt suppliers, If the spacer does not need to be too thick you can usually cut it with a strong pair of scissors or a tin snip.

If the pad furthest from the caliper bracket is dragging you might have to take the bracket of and have a machine shop machine a bit of material of the bracket. (my brackets have a about 1mm machined of the one face. It might be possible if yours has a machined face that the bracket was mounted backwards)

Hope this helps

Thanks Greg,

Is there an internal adjustment in the back of the caliper to adjust the pad? I thought there was a set screw and nut but could be wrong? I'll check the centering. I do have slack in the cables.

It's about 19 degrees out side with a stiff wind and the car is in my back garage so it may be a little while before I check it out.

I can't say I have come across a caliper with an internal adjustment. I could be wrong though. what caliper are you using?

I believe they are the EMPI conversion kit.

I shimed the mount plates on the hubs to get clearance to correct that and still had to shim it at the caliper to get them center.
it worked but I was not impressed with the setup.

I have sence sold them went back to type three 2 peace drums.

But Greg is right, that will work...

Ron, I am just installing an EMPI rear disk kit, and have the instructions on hand. They are no great shakes: a couple of photo copied pages. But I could fax you a copy if you want. I think there is a page on installing the pads and adjusting. You can reach me at k_ruiter@yahoo.com.

Thanks Karl, I have the instructions. The part that I'm wondering about is where it mentions adjusting the e brake and tells you to look at the manual. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. If it is just referring to adjusting the cable at the lever I understand that. If there is some internal adjustment in the caliper, that's what I'm interested in.

Is there any kind of set screw adjustment on the back of the caliper? I could check mine but it would mean I'd have to carry a jack 80 feet out through the snow to my back garage and jack it up to double check.