How To Replace BMW E30 Handbrake & E-brake Adjustment Guide | Plus Brake Bleeding & Drive | 024

How To Replace BMW E30 Handbrake & E-brake Adjustment Guide | Plus Brake Bleeding & Drive | 024

In this BWM E30 project episode, I get to fitting up the new hand brake mechanism and fine-tuning the adjustment. I know how fiddly setting up a parking brake is so I created this video as a rough guide to hopefully help other BMW owners out. They're all pretty much the same with the handbrake drum.

Here are the parts I used in this video:
Meyle E30 Handbrake Shoes & Fitting Kit: https://ebay.us/W8W8na
E30 Handbrake Shoe Expanding Latch: https://ebay.us/gmYhOY
BMW E30 Handbrake Cables with plastic ferrule: https://ebay.us/igWCp0
Lockheed washers to fix your brake shields: https://ebay.us/iq283e
Brake pipe spanners: https://ebay.us/B51Vme

The first task for me was removing the wheels, calipers and brake discs I fitted in the previous episode. You'll notice that my BMW E30 now has 5 wheel bolts on the rear following the conversion. As I mentioned before, the beauty of this is the ability to use the standard E30 handbrake mechanism with this new, larger E46 rear brake rotor. So this guide is exactly the same whether you have a standard E30 or a modified one like mine now is.

If you're removing old hand brake cables, be aware that the metal ferrule on the cables are known to rust and become one with the car's cable tubes, and they can be a real pain to remove if they've been stuck on there 30 years or more.

As my rear end has been fully stripped down during the restoration, I only need to put it together afresh. Starting by threading those hand brake cables into the cabin, which appear beneath the handbrake lever. Once they have, thread on the nuts a few turns so they are kept in place inside the car, then feed the opposite end of the cable through the rest trailing arm into its operating position.

With that done, the next job is to fit up all of the fiddly handbrake parts that consist of:
1. The expanding latch that is actuated by the cables
2. Handbrake shoes
3. Spiral pins and their compression springs
4. The top adjuster
5. The handbrake springs

As you can see in the video this can be challenging to do on the car, but start off by being sure of their orientation and you will get there eventually. I found it easiest to put the top spring on both handbrake shoes, add the adjuster and then put it on the hub and build the rest up.

At this point its worth mentioning the Lockheed type washers you can use on the back of the brake shields, to give your spiral pins a bit more to bite on. If your brake shields are original the chances are these holes cut in them are looking a lot slacker than before, and it can cause the whole mechanism to fail. These washers will save you a lot of trouble, they're linked above.

Once it's on, you need to work on the handbrake adjustment by winding the top adjuster out so the disc just about catches on the disc as its installed, then backing it off slightly.

Then you need to adjust the ebrake lever in the cabin by screwing on the 2 nuts further, you want this set to be only around 5 hand brake lever clicks on before it's firming up nicely.

After this I decided to bleed up the rear brake calipers to get them operating, just with some cheap dot4 fluid for now, then I pushed the boat out and chucked some fuel back in the car and managed to get the engine running again after an 18 month rest on axle stands.

I'm over the moon that the car ended up firing up, and there's no leaks on either my brake or fuel system which had been all apart not too long ago.

0:00 - Intro and job prep
3:20 - Handbrake shoe parts and assembly
5:37 - Fitting handbrake cables
8:41 - Fitting handbrake mechanism
11:49 - Handbrake adjustment
16:03 - Bleeding the rear brake calipers
19:36 - Preparing to start the engine
24:46 - Engine start and drive

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