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Ford Explorer Community - Maintenance - Modifications - Performance Upgrades - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street
Explorer Forum Covers the Explorer ST, Explorer Sport, Explorer Sport Trac, Lincoln Aviator, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Ford Aerostar
Hey guys I have a 98 explore 5-speed, How do i adjust the rear brakes. when I push the parking brake in it does not hold the car, so the car will start to roll. How do I adjust them. thanks
Welcome to the site!! Adjusting the rear brakes is simple. They adjust themselves, because you have 4 wheel discs. The parking brake is a seperate drum inside of the disc itself. If the parking brake is ever left on it usually destroys the shoes. This happened on my last Explorer. Put in new shoes and everything was fine.
Something to think about. You may not still have rear E brakes. These are notorious for delaminating at this age even if you don't use them. I had a little grinding sound one morning and when I pulled the wheel in the afternoon, one shoe had no friction material. Not even any pieces of it when I pulled the drum. If you lose it on one wheel the other side won't work either.
what's up guys,
thanks for the help and the auto zone website.
It appears they are self adjusting, but now I don't know where to start to see what's working and what's not.
I think I am more confussed.
I should have added that if you try to pull the drums it will likely destroy the E brakes. A pretty hefty rust ridge forms that makes them hard to pull off even if you tuck in the adjuster. Zone used to carry replacements but stopped. These are NOT self adjusting, that was first gen.
Yes, you have to adjust your parking brake shoes. There is a rubber plug in the back of each rear wheel hub that comes out. Once removed, there is a small "star" adjusting wheel inside. Using either a flat screw driver or an actual brake adjusting tool you turn the wheel. One direction will tighten the brakes up, the other will loosen them. If I remember correctly, the procedure to adjust them is to tighten them up until they just make contact with the drum, then back them off 5 clicks. My method is to just tighten them up until I can't turn the wheel and then back them off just until I don't feel any restriction on the wheel. Seems to work OK since my Parking brakes are fully set at about 3/4 pressure on the pedal.
Yeah, we turned that star washer on mine like 12 flats to get my pbrake back into adjustment. Now its gone again... I think my parking brakes might be hanging up or something (maybe causing my bad mpgs) b/c a parking brake shouldn't go completely out of adjustment in 4 months
I think I will bump this into 2005. My e-brakes were not working correctly after I installed new ones, "according to install specifications"!
This is a helpful post.....jimabena74 has a great link to click and read!!!!
i step on the parking brakes all the way in and the explore still move forward until the transmission parking gear stops it. all the part seem to do their job, what i did see was that the cord was really lose. i pulled on it and the brakes seem to tighten more what is the problem and what can i do ? thanx in advance
jed, here is a link to a nice informative video, from 1Aauto. It will help explain what's going on back there:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn2EIx6Yujw
That guy is right, you need a helper to work the pedal...I had to do mine alone and that action got old pretty quick.
Best wishes.
