1996 Nissan 240SX Parking brake cable question

MCPAUL

MEMBER
1996 NISSAN 240SX

Brakes problem
1996 Nissan 240SX 4 cyl Manual 160000 miles

I've got a very frustrating problem with my parking brake.

After driving for about 45 minutes I came to a stop. I pulled up on the e-brake handle and the handle came all the way to the top. The e-brake seemed to work just fine. I drove back home and smelled that thing that you smell when your clutch is bad. I got under the car and realzied that the passenger side e-brake cable was very loose while the driver side was working just fine. The pivolting bracket that connects the two cables to the handle cable was skewed toward the drivers side. I realize that my passenger side ebrake cable could be stretched, but I have no idea how to disconnect it from that bracketing pivot to even see if it can be adjusted. What can I do?

1 Reply

MCPAUL

MEMBER
2 POSTS

Interesting problem that was difficult to diagnose. The passenger-side rear caliper has a spring on it that the e-brake cable pulls on in order to engage the ebrake. For some strange reason the spring was stuck in the pulled position, meaning that when the ebrake was released the spring stayed where it was as opposed to retracting as it should have. This caused my e-brake cable on that side to fall off, and also made the travel of the e-brake handle such that I needed to pull the handle all the way to the top to engage the e-brake. I tapped the spring with a screwdriver and sprayed WD-40 into the spring and it sprung back.