Help with rear brakes and emergency brake cable

My emergency brake cable is rusted. Some one applied the emergency brake which I never used and now my rear wheels don't roll. The car has been sitting in my drive way. I tried to free up the wheels. I took the rear tire off and have never done rear brakes on this car. The caliper bolts are confusing. I have a Bentley manual for a Jetta 93-99 and it shows rear disc brakes. I tried to loosen the caliper bolt and it just turns. There seems to be a nut on the other side like a jam nut. The manual talks about a guide bolt and a self-locking bolt.It says always replace the caliper mounting bolts.They are one time only self locking bolts. Any help to a link on how work on this would be appreciated or advice,thanks.

Get a pair of vice grips on the cable end at the caliper, and yank. You could also cut the cable. If your calipers aren't siezed, the brakes should release.

You may need to manually tap the cable arm, back to its un-braked position.

-Todd

Thanks Todd I will give that a try.Are you familiar with doing rear brakes on these cars? Those things I mentioned in my thread I am not familiar with.Also I might want to replace the emergency brake cable since this one is no good.How hard is it to change the cable? Thanks.

The hardest part is removing the center console. It's pretty straightforward job.

If your cable ends are rusty, where they enter the body, spray them down with some penetrating oil and work them back-and-forth with a twisting motion, to break them free.

-Todd

You will need an open end wrench to hold it from turning while you loosen the bolt. You can reuse the bolts.

...and you'll find it needs to be a *thin* open-ended wrench.

Several vendors sell specific ones, most of us just grind a cheap one thinner.

With any luck your's may fit already... some do right out of the box.

The other thing to know is that if you decide to change the pads or do any other work requiring the calipers to be pushed back you have to rotate them as they are pressed back in, due to the parking brake mechanism.

This is common to many manufacturer's rear brakes and many part stores will loan out the tool required. There's also a cheap "cube" style block you can buy, or the fancy tool itself.

Thanks for that photo.A very good shot of the caliper.Your rust free car looks very good from that angle. I looked at Autohausaz's web site and they show an end cable stating two are required. Mine are very rusty.I thought just the ends can be changed and the part that leads to the handle is another separate section of cable? I have not crawled under the car yet to see how it is routed.

Thanks for that explanation about the caliper. Does it have to be rotated back in? Or both pressed and rotated back in at the same time?

diesel steve said:

Thanks for that explanation about the caliper. Does it have to be rotated back in? Or both pressed and rotated back in at the same time?

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Pressed and rotated at the same time.

One example of the tool required: Metalnerd's MN3272, second one down:

http://www.metalnerd.com/cat08.htm

diesel steve said:

I thought just the ends can be changed and the part that leads to the handle is another separate section of cable? I have not crawled under the car yet to see how it is routed.

Click to expand...

It's one long cable between each caliper lever and the handle. This way when you replace the cable you replace everything, including the housings.

The pipes are separate from the cables, so don't toss those out with the old cables. These aren't that difficult to replace but there is the issue of taking out the console.

I would bet that your calipers are probably fine, that is unless they've been ignored for a long long time.

Steve

Thanks for the responses. I looked on Autohausaz's web site and it shows a short cable and says right and left and one photo but says two are required. Where do they sell a one piece cable that goes all the way to the handle? Also thanks for the photo of the caliper tool.

Is there a link that shows how to remove the console?

diesel steve said:

Is there a link that shows how to remove the console?

Click to expand...

It really not that hard...Head over to the Vortex and do a search, lot of great info there.

There's no one piece cable that does both sides, it takes two identical cables and each one is attached with 10mm nuts at the handle assembly.

Make sure that what ever cable you get it says it's for rear disc brakes.

Steve