Rear Brakes

So are the rear calipers self adjusting or not....if not, could lack of adjustment be why the parking brake is so ineffective on so many 308's?

 

Set the rear brake pads to the proper clearance (.002) gap on each side. I do this about once a year. Make sure your motor mounts aren't sagging (E-cable rubbing exhaust manifold). E-Brake will work if everything is in proper repair and operation.

 

The rear brakes are not self adjusting.

 

In theory, they are self-adjusting, they just don't do it very well. I.e., they self-adjust well enough so the pad-to-disk spacing doesn't get ridiculous and cause excessive pedal motion, but the pad-to-disk spacing is not small enough to have the e-brake work well.

 

.004

 

The E brake is not all that great but if its adjusted correctly it works OK. As Steve said it's difficult to get it tight enough without introducing brake pad drag. Mine will hold on a slight grade maybe 7%. And while the brakes (not E-brake) are kinda self adjusting just like most other disk brakes the E-brake is not and as the pads wear the mechanical E-brake adjustment gets opens up and the E brake gets less effective. Its a pretty poor design although used by Porsche (and maybe others) also. Picture details where e brake adjuster is. (Birdman picture)


Barry

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That's a good photo, but it only shows the outboard pad adjuster location under the plastic cap -- there is also an inboard pad adjuster under a metal threaded plug on the other side:
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The stock inboard threaded plug, and/or its smallish female hex drive feature, often gets mangled so not uncommon to replace it with an aftermarket part with a male hex drive feature (appeared in the FML some decades ago ):
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Yep, forgot about that.

 

Mine had aluminium hex socket caps which rounded when trying to remove them. I found some stainless caps in case anyone needs some (£10/pair for me to find them and post.)