Changed rear brake pads; parking brake woes

The car in question: 2002 Mazda Protege5
Service manual I used to help: http://protege5.ugly.net/#brakes

The problem started when my rear left caliper was intermittently sticky. You can see the difference in wear between the pads below. The rear left pads were far more worn down. I plan to replace the left caliper assembly with a remanufactured unit in the near future.

So, the other day I replaced both sides of my rear brake pads. Everything went well until afterwards, I tested the parking brake. As I expected, it was limp so I adjusted the brake piston on each side using the adjustment gear as directed, making sure the rotor didn't drag. That didn't help much. Then, I went to the adjustment bolt at the side of the parking brake and that proved to be even more useless.

Here I am now, and by manually pulling on the parking brake cable at each brake, the left cable doesn't push the piston in at all, and the right cable only slightly affects the piston's position. The parking brake handle stills pulls up freely all the way to the fully up position and it only slightly grabs the right side rotor.

What am I missing here?

you sure you adjusted them right? Go back and check. Tighten the allen key bolt all the way until the pads are snug against the rotor, then back it off 1/4 - 1/3 turn. Something else to note is that our rears should self adjust, so if you've got some room, reverse and stomp the pedal a few times

By snug, do you mean rotor absolutely will not turn by hand, and then back off 1/3 turn of the adjustment gear? I'll check that again.

Also, is there a difference between stomping the brakes going in reverse or going forward?

Thanks!

When you apply the brakes going forward, due to weight transfer, the rear brakes don't do a whole lot of work. Conversely, if you do it in reverse, the rear brakes are forced to do alot of work- which aides in the adjustment process.

they're not drum brakes, they don't work that way!

TheMAN said:

they're not drum brakes, they don't work that way!

Click to expand...

+1 i didnt think that sounded right