Maybe try lightly scuffing the surface of the e-brake shoes and the inside of the drum with some 30-40 grit to increase friction? I adjust mine to 3-4 clicks as well.
last resort would be to ditch the ebrakes all together and go full hydraulic parking brake like this...
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Park-Lok-Hydraulic-Brake,1970.html
The whole point of the e-brake is to save your life when they hydraulics fail
. Unless they're on a totally different circuit, doesn't make sense to me. Yea, I know the odds of blowing out a brake line at the same time as your engine stops running are pretty slim, but I've had it happen
. I want triple redundancy.
The WJ has a 1" master cylinder. No need to change out the stock one as it is already 1"
Yup. And like I said, the issue isn't a lack of braking force. I can just lock up my 35's on dry pavement and that's more than adequate for me. On the trail, my brakes grab MUCH harder than I'd ever need. The only reason I'm looking at my brakes is because of my smoking front pads.
I read most the thread but found myself going back to your 1st post! YOU said your front pads and rotors were smoking like a mutha! I don't know if I'm correct but, With that statement it leads me to believe that you are not getting correct proportioning from your system! Were your rears hot? They will remain relatively cooler but should still be pretty warm if the fronts were burning up!
Fronts were smoking, obviously way overheated and clearly faded out. Rears were very hot. Hot enough that half my wheel was too hot to touch. Just not hot enough to smoke. They were still grabbing, but ya know. How useful are rear brakes when you're pointed down 30* and all your weight is on your nose ?
Yes, the rears are working. I'd actually like to just remove the prop valve entirely because my weight transfer on the street is actually pretty good and my fronts definitely lock up long before the rears. My weight distribution is ****ed. My ass end weighs almost 100lbs more than the front somehow. I think it has to do with gravity and the Universe ****ing with me.
That just reminded me, when I first got my first xj I took it mudding then a few days later I was driving around and burned up the front brakes on both sides because the vented part of the rotors was full of mud.
Maybe your got extra hot for the same reason. Otherwise, get some centric premium rotors and black magic pads and be done with it. Or you can try to save a few dollars and start a few more threads trying to figure out why it doesn't work like you think it should.
Maybe your Chevy 63" leaves aren't letting your rear brakes do their job. I haven't seen those mentioned in this thread yet.
I know. I'm an asshole, but wen cal and rockclimber agree on something (centric premium rotors and black magic pads) then you should listen.
Front rotor vents were clean. I think, as has been mentioned, that I just hit the limit of my pads. The 63's are definitely wrapping less than any XJ leaf I've ever run. Yea, it's much softer but my shocks keep my shoes on the ground pretty well and when I put the brake hammer down on steep descents, my Jeep doesn't try to spin around, so I'm pretty sure the rears are doing their job pretty well.
I'm going to grab a set of BM pads (especially after reading the thread on JF and seeing how Mr.Blaine runs his business) and possibly some new rotors (that hurts as I JUST installed new rotors/pads).
First though, I want to take the Jeep on the same trip again to get the pads smoking and this time have an IR thermometer with me to verify the pad/rotor/brake line temps, if for no other reason than to have a real world comparison against the new pads when they get installed. Thus far I haven't seen anyone actually post real world temperature data to confirm the BM pads stay sticky well past the temps at which other pads just melt. I don't doubt that they do, but I'm a data guy. All data is good data.
