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      08-03-2019, 11:12 AM   #101
VictorH
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Drives: '09 M3
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: SC

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Quick tutorial on the e-brake reassembly

1) Wear gloves, it's messy
2) When you disassembled hopefully you left the top spring next to the adjuster in place to hold the brake shoes together.
3) If you have wheel studs now is the time to adjust the shoes a bit, as the adjustment through the lug bolt hole obviously is not available. I adjusted mine about a quarter turn out.
4) Put the assembly over the wheel hub and attach the trailing shoe (back of car) to the backing plate with the pin/spring retainer for the passenger side. You want to put the opposite shoe on of where the lever for the hand-brake cable goes. It will make sense when you see it. I think it was leading shoe on the driver's side (didn't do them at same time).
5) The pin/spring retainer is easy to compress with a 5 mm Allen wrench as it just fits into the middle. Though it seems that this should be easy, it's somewhat difficult to line up and it will take multiple tries and this is the easy side. Once you get it in, look from the side to make sure the blade part of the pin is now 90 degrees to the slot. You don't want it to pop out.
6) Next take the brake cable lever, put the claw-part of the lever behind the cable end and then insert the lever into the back shoe first and then the front shoe.
7) Now the frustrating part. If you inclined to use colorful language when you get frustrated get ready to use most of that vocabulary. For some reason the second shoe retaining pin is just a total bugger to get in. You'll look through the shoe, see the slot right behind it, but when you go to place the pin, if it's not just perfect, it won't go in. Just keep trying, looking, lining up and try again until it goes.
8) Second to last step- putting in the lower spring. Now one lesson I have learned from working on old cars with rusty bolts and frozen parts or anytime you will have to apply a lot of force, is first think about how many ways you can hurt yourself. All my really good bang-ups have been when things have let go or the tool slipped off and I didn't think about what my hand would smash into. This spring is really tight so be careful. You don't want to cut your hand on the backing plate or hit something else solid with your hand.
I used a good sized pair of needle nose pliers, used the brake cable mechanism for some leverage and was able to get the spring in on the second or third try.
9) Last step is to put the brake cable retaining clip in from the back-side, tighten and then you are good to go. Reinstall the rotor and brake caliper and you're all set.
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