Could someone post the proper way to adj
ust the parking break?

 

They are auto adjusting. But if you manually want to do it, set the clearance between the rotor and shoe to 0.6604 mm.

 

If they are auto adjusting, mine is not working right. I have no parking brake at all and the pads are like new.

 

You know the pads are inside the rear rotors, right? The brakes are disc, but the parking brake is drum style that pushes against the inside that disc rotor. Just wanted to make sure.

Your saying you have pulled the rear rotors off the truck?

Its pretty basic from there... cable frozen up, mechanical linkage in the drum frozen?

 

Some of them had a u shaped rear parking brake that is inside the brake rotor, you have to remove the rotors to check them. the U style parking brake drum is a p.o.s. they sometimes get kinked in there and dont quite release all the way causing them to wear out and in some cases take out the rotor with them. check that the material on the parking brake shoe is still good then adjust manually if you have to.

 

There is a 2 step process for the parking brake. 1) If you just did your brakes, you need to reset them just as you would adjust them if the auto-adjuster wasn't doing it's job. They're shoes/drums like on the old cars.
2) If the pedal has slack there is a procedure to reset the pedal. It seems fairly easy (I still need to do mine, the shop that replaced the shoes and turned the drun/rotors didn't perform the second adjustment. This Must be done AFTER the shoe adjustment has been completed!

I'll have to dig out the Shop Manuals to quote it.
MikeH

 

Thanks for all the replies, I pulled the rotors and manually adjusted the parking break. It seems the auto adjust was not working properly. I also have a friend with the same year and same trouble and steered him in the right direction.

 

I am reviving this thread as I don't think it was fully answered, and I need some clarity on it as my the brakes aren't holding the truck on inclines. I understand there are adjustment dials inside the rear drum/disk assembly but before I dissemble the rear brakes, I wanted to see if there is an adjustment at the pedal. I've read that there is, and then I've read that there is a 'pin' that needs to be set in order to adjust the pedal, and then I've also read that setting and releasing the parking brake three times automatically adjusts it out; but I think lots of people are confusing the various approaches to how these adjust across various vehicles and not being specific on how it works with the GM's/H2's. Does any one here know if there is even a pedal adjustment at all and if so how it works? There is nothing in the owner's manual on this subject.

 

This is from the actual GM Service Info System that dealers use.... From what I can determine the "locking pin" is not there. That is removed at the factory. You would use a screwdriver or something similar to put one in place while servicing the park brake if needed. Most likely the pads are shot or out of adjustment. The "hat in rotor" style parking brakes on GM trucks leaves a bit to be desired. That being said they are fairly easy to replace. I did the ones on my Sierra a few years ago and they hold great now. Have not had to mess with it on my H2...... yet.

 

Perfect. The pedal adjustment appears to be overly complicated/confusing if you've never done one before, but thank you, this was exactly what I was looking for!