Emergency Brake Engaged While Driving

[Aenyone]

Hey folks.
I've done some research here and on rennlist, but there seems to be a little bit more activity here.
Here's the details.
1989 944 N/A

I was driving along when I heard a *snap* and my wheels locked up. I managed to get off of the main road, and noticed that my emergency brake arm was stuck to the floor. I couldn't lift it.
I did manage to back up a little bit and I could feel the arm loosen up until I was able to fully lift it and put it back to the floor.
I was able to go after that.

I have a friend in the next town from here, and I sent him a video of what the cable looked like going into the back of the wheel hub area.
The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn033wqzJF8

How can I get this tightened back up? Has anyone had this trouble before?

thanks ahead of time.

[SuperXRAY]

What did the shoes look like?

I haven't found much information regarding the e-brake, and posting here about the shoes left me with very very few responses. Interesting enough, the brake cable on our 944 is attached to the lower control arm with some pretty hefty zip ties, done by a rather prominent shop in North Carolina. They didn't even use black ones...

Anyways, look under the car where the two cables mate with their holding bracket, making sure it is still intact.

I noticed you already have the rear brakes off the car, but what did everything look like? Were all the shoe retainer springs intact? The actuator (in your video) that is loose is normal, as it is a floating design. Once everything is put back together, which I found rather tedious compared to non-Porsche cars' e-brakes, it still floats between the two shoes. I'd snap a pic but I've already got the rears back together. I used my innovative two-screwdriver-and-double-forearm method.

If I had to guess from your description of what happened...the front retainer spring came loose, possibly from incorrect installation alignment, allowing the front shoe to come off the stop block, which is directly under the actuator. This HAS happened on other cars, though they respond differently than the Porsche brakes. If the front shoe did that, it will pull the cable assembly while engaging the e-brake, causing what you described.

The installation of the retainer springs is critical to the operation of the e-brake. They can ONLY be installed one way, at least on our '83.

[Aenyone]

Thanks for the response, Xray.
I did check where the cables meet in the middle of the car, everything looked fine.
You asked about the shoes:
Dirty, but plenty left on them.

The cable on the driver's side doesn't wiggle like this one did.

[SuperXRAY]

That's just disgusting! Looks like it got pretty hot.

I'll venture out this afternoon and snap a pic where the cable connects on ours and look for any retainer clips or anything.

[beefey]

I did the parking brake delete mod witha crowbar to mine =). I never use the parking brake, maybe on a steep hill but not many of those in the midwest.