Having just gone through this late in the fall, I can definitely sympathize! I had a catastrophic failure of a rear caliper, where it somehow lost a pad, piston came out too far, and the master pumped all of the fluid out in seconds! Long story short, I decided to do all new brakes and rotors, and since my ebrake didn’t work, I decided to get new shoes for that as well since I was due for an inspection, and would never pass without a working ebrake. Once I got everything apart, I discovered that either a previous owner, or the unscrupulous dealer stripped out all of the internals to the ebrake! Just the cables remained and the ends were looped so they wouldn’t drag on the drums. I should’ve checked it when I bought it, but I was way too focused on inspecting other way more costly functions like the transfer case hi/low, rust, front end components, engine, etc., and since in 35 years of driving have never once used an ebrake on an automatic car. I don’t even use them on my manual cars unless on a steep grade (I just use a low gear like reverse, or first to keep it from rolling). Anyway, sourcing all the parts was a bit difficult because, some of them don’t come in the rebuild kits, especially the very expensive, cast lever arms! Once I found the parts I was missing and got them working, I too had the same issue. I drove it for a couple of days with them dragging enough to make the rotors quite a bit hotter when checked with a laser temp gun, but they still wouldn’t hold the truck! When it came to inspection day, I was forced to crank them so tight that the truck wouldn’t even roll backwards on hill with the ebrake disengaged! Since the station was only a couple of miles from my house, I drove it there, got my sticker, then came back and loosened them so they don’t drag at all. Obviously the ebrake won’t hold the truck anymore, and I’m going to o have to go through the same BS next year for inspection. The thing that bothered me is that when they were lightly dragging, they’d hold the truck if I just put it in first gear, but the test people also bring it up between 1500-2000 rpms! Even with it as tight as I could get it, it would break free at that point! I was honest with the inspector about the problem, and explained that EVERYTHING was brand new and still wouldn’t hold under that much throttle, especially with the torque of the v8. Luckily he was cool and let it slide because I’m sure a lot of vehicles with those stupid internal drums share this issue. So, aside from applying the ebrake every now and then just so the cables don’t freeze up and rust, I have no actual use for it.
