308 QV Emergency Brake Issue

Ok, so I've done this job before, and I've done several cam belt services including valve adjustments, so the fact that I'm not having success here is making me very irritable, so I'll vent here in hopes someone can help.

Issue was that the e-brake did next to nothing, and I was replacing tires/doing an oil change, so why not do the adjustment. I have adjusted all four caliper hex thingies such that there is 0.1mm between the pad and the calipers. I've double checked. We're all good.

To reduce confusion, I've completely disconnected the e-brake cable from both calipers.

Now my rear wheels won't turn at all. I have the rear wheels up in the air (jack stands), I put it in reverse, and the wheels do not turn.

Wait, that's not exactly true. If I back off the lug bolts just a tiny bit, one at a time, on the fifth and final loosen, the wheel turns fine. If I have no wheel on and I put the car in neutral, I can turn the wheel disk by hand. But if I put the wheel back on and tighten it (not even to the normal torque setting), I can't even turn the wheel in neutral....until I back off the bolts.

What am I doing wrong? Yes, I have the rear tires in the proper size on the proper wheels.

Thanks for any assistance!

-Matt
'85 Euro 308

 

Have your discs got the retaining bolts that hold the disc to the flange fitted ? Ii sounds as though the disc is moving away from the drive flange when you’re setting the 0.1 clearance, and then when you bolt the wheel tight it’s pushing the discs against the pad. Just a thought


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Do you mean the two "pins" that are both holding the rotor on and also serves as kind of guides to put the wheels on? If so, yeah, they're there, but I never disturbed them. *sigh* Frustrated....

 

Yes they’re what I was referring to, can you put the wheel bolts in without the wheel on and then readjust the brake ? I can’t remember though whether the bolts go too far in without the wheel on so you might want to check clearance before doing the bolts up tight


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Now that's an idea I hadn't considered, and a good one. Thanks! My first attempt was stupid because I tried to do it without removing the pins that hold the pads in. Without doing that, the pads weren't moving freely. I took those out tonight, adjusted again, lubed the pins up, and the wheels still wouldn't turn. My next attempt will be to take those pins out again, check clearance (should still be good at 0.1mm), then tighten up those lug bolts and check clearance and see if it is tighter then. If so, I'll adjust at that point, take the bolts out, put the wheel on, and try again.

Too late tonight...but at least I have a strategy for my next attempt.

 

Aren't the wheel bolts for the rears different then the fronts ??

 

Only in length; the rear bolts are shorter than the front ones.

 

Exactly! Made the mistake on my 82 GTS of putting the wrong wheel bolts on the rear and had the exact same issue. Pull the wheels back off and you will find some of the wheel lugs are longer and those go on the front.

 

I guess my issue stems with the fact that:

i) Costco wouldn't replace my tires because the car was "too low" so I brought it home and pulled all the wheels and brought them loose, and
ii) Apparently I'm so ignorant that I forgot that the wheel bolts are different lengths. I normally don't pull more than a wheel at a time, so I'm not sure that I've ever had fronts and rears off at the same time. I just put them all in one bucket and blindly put them back in. I need to look at every single one of them now, including the fronts which are already mounted.

Will follow up and confirm this solved my issue.

 

Easily overlooked. Had all four wheel/tire off mine and was getting ready to ship to the new owner. Just grabbed Lugnuts out of the coffee can and didn’t even consider that they might be a different length. Let the car down and couldn’t even get it to budge. Fortunately it’s an inexpensive fix LOL

 

That's a hidden blessing, as those places love their impact wrenches waaaaay too much and over-torque wheel lugs every day.

 

Actually I've always been pleased using Costco -- they use torque wrenches and ask you to come back 25 miles later to re-torque....one of my f-list friends has even brought his F40 to his Costco for tires!

 

I'm torn between feeling like the idiot I am for not remembering/realizing/noticing the different lengths and hanging my head in shame, or smiling because I can fix this problem for $0.00. I guess I'll take the latter approach...

 

So now back to your original post, are your emergency brakes working better?

 

When I quit working last night, I got a beer and sat down and vented to you all. When I woke up, I had the answer and as I walked by the car in the garage I looked in the bucket of lug bolts (front wheels are on already) and see some short and some long. So I'm sure this is the issue.

Hopefully this afternoon I'll have time to get all the bolts in the right place and see that it's not all frozen up anymore. Then the next step is to see if the brake now stops the car! I did adjust the cable some (to shorter) as part of all this adjustment. I'll never know once I get it all working properly if the reason it wasn't working is due to the caliper adjustment or the cable adjustment....

 

Huh? An almost useless parking brake is Normal Vehicle Function on a 308.

 

I'm happy to report that now that I have the bolts in the right places, the emergency brake works normally. It doesn't prevent the car from moving now, and it also doesn't hold the car in place in neutral on a slope. Just like it has been!

 

congrats Matt! Now I was told by an Ferrari expert that the handbrake on the 308 is either work or not, I told him that my emergency brake has been working great since I got the car 11 years ago. He ask me if I use my handbrake all the the time, and I said yes, he then told me that’s why it has been working for me is because I use it and as the mechanism is being exercised and got everything to work. Don’t know if that makes any sense but maybe if you use yours all the time and exercises it, it might someday work. My car stop and holds in neutral on a 25% grade or on a typical driveway.

 

I always use mine, every time....but.....the car was involved in a fender bender (I wasn't in the car at the time) and it spent about 2 years up at Classic Coach. I'm wondering if it is the mechanism at the calipers and not so much the cable length. In any event, I'll get under there again soon and shorten up the cable more and see if that helps....

Before it went up to sit for 2 years, the parking brake actually worked great.

 

Sounds like it just need minor adjustments. Double check everything since it was working great before.