GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

My parking brake doesn't. It's too simple not to work but nobody told it that.

Pull hard, the cable is tight, but the car still moves. We've inspected everything, adjusted, taken up the cable slack, installed new shoes, sanded the inside of the drums. It mostly holds now when parked, but is totally ineffective when tested from 5 mph or so.

My friend and excellent mechanic suggested new rotor/drums because "We've tried everything else...." and I 'm installing them in a few days. I doubt it will help but...


Side question: where do the 2 rear cables connect the sole front cable?

It's possible the cables are stretched beyond use, I think. The rear cables connect somewhere above the exhaust, behind a heat shield, on the way to the front of the car. You should be able to follow them decently to see where they go.

But when I pull the lever, the cable is taut up there.
(There are more clicks available on the lever..)

The two cables vanish into the Twlight Zone above the heat shields.

I think you're going the right way with the new rotor/drums. Hopefully the old ones weren't contaminated with anything (grease, brake fluid) or the new shoes are now contaminated also.

It may be possible the drums are beyond spec and the shoes aren't contacting the drums correctly. Or someone drove with the brakes applied and damaged the drum.

You've verified that both sides are working the same? Both sets of shoes move and are contacting the drum? Both rear cables are tight with brake lever applied?

If it's not the friction surfaces, it must be the cable system. I've never run into this, so I'm speculating. If one of the rear cables is frozen, the lever will feel tight but only one brake will be applied.

We adjusted, tested, adjusted again, both wheels.
No grease or oil in the drums. I wire brushed them and used emery cloth.
My mechanic friend wonders about the quality of the cast iron but that's a Hail Mary.

I don't like the lever; I wish it went to horizontal when released and had more travel, but doubt that is the cause of my grief.

update:

New rear rotors
New shoes
adjusted everything.

It now holds at least on level ground, but little more.

Maybe they need to be "bedded in." Try a few easy stops with the parking brake while driving.

Decided it is the backing plates flexing.

I'm seeking the corresponding Toyota Matrix part numbers for the plates. Can anyone tell me how to locate same?

ZZvroom wrote: ↑Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:00 pm Decided it is the backing plates flexing.

I'm seeking the corresponding Toyota Matrix part numbers for the plates. Can anyone tell me how to locate same?

There is a PDF of 2003 Matrix parts here at http://www.genvibe.com/images/misc/manu ... atalog.pdf
In that PDF, on page 15 of 17 (page number 1187) it says the Toyota part numbers for the backing plates on an XRS (Vibe GT equivalent) are
R 46503-20070
L 46504-20070

Looking online those things are $200-$300, so if you buy them, I sure hope they fix the problem

Thanks!

Buy them out of Canada if you can...They used to be like $50/ea there.

Reading the original issue here reminds me of my 2004 Vibe GT, although it really doesn't bother mu much at this point. With parking brake lever pulled up all the way, the car will roll backwards BUT not forward. My driveway is on a slight incline so if I really want to use it, then I back the car up where the park brake is effective. Weird sort of and I'll address this issue more in the future when performing wheel/brake work. For now I just live with it.

This forward vs. backward is my case as well.

Are your backing plates rusted as mine are? I'd rather not spend $300 and a lot of work just to find out that doesn't solve the issue.

Same problem. I paid a bunch of money and waited a long time for the shop to find parts - rear disc stuff appears to be hard to source, I assume because there weren't a ton of these. Worked for a couple of years and is now back to doing nothing. I'm not going to spend any more on it. It's pretty flat here in Indiana, and I can probably just throw a parking block in my go-bag. but I'm going to watch this thread and see if you figure out a good solution.

I'm having a similar issue with the parking brake. What's happening for me though is I pulled the rotors off and replaced the drums and rotors for the ebrake/parking brake but now I can't get the rotors back on over the new brake pads. Any solutions? I think the pads went bad because they were completely gone when I pulled the old drums off. Any suggestions on a solution or how to start troubleshooting the issue?

keeponkeepinon316 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 3:28 pm I'm having a similar issue with the parking brake. What's happening for me though is I pulled the rotors off and replaced the drums and rotors for the ebrake/parking brake but now I can't get the rotors back on over the new brake pads. Any solutions? I think the pads went bad because they were completely gone when I pulled the old drums off. Any suggestions on a solution or how to start troubleshooting the issue?

You're going to have to move the adjuster in that way the brake shoes will be pulled to the center of the hub to allow the rotor to go over them.

Here's an update on my longstanding parking brake issue.

So I went to a friend's as he, unlike me. is a real mechanic. He also owned a 2005 base model.

The new backing plates came with Toyota part number stickers and were identical to the rusted OEM ones.

Pulling the backing plate & hub was ordinary; take all the brake parts off and remove the parking brake cable.

But then it got ...interesting....
I had not purchased new hubs so we needed to get them out of the old backing plates.

The Fine Manual shows the hub easily separating from the backing plate. Yea, SURE!

Here's how we got them apart:
See: https://photos.app.goo.gl/a5MgZZAyiZX7RKpm6

• Bend rusted sheet metal out of the way.
• With saw, score a tangent to the hub into the backing plate.
• Follow the score with a Dremel to partially cut though the 0.25" plate
• Flex the top back and forth until it breaks off.
• With a gap in the plate, minor chiseling extracted the hubs. We wire-brushed them clean.
• Reinstallation was trivial.

But the brakes shoes were a different issue. AutoZone sold us a set that had the levers riveted to the shoe; ours were removable. With the new shoes in place, and the star-wheel retracted, there was no way the rotor would fit; the shoes were too far apart. The notch in the new levers protrued too far by almost .2 inches.

We removed the new levers and used the old ones. That almost solved the issue so we removed a smidgen from the starwheel socket and we were there. The wheels spun freely.