How to unlock emergency brakes
Fixing a Stuck Parking Brake or Emergency E Brake with Basic Hand Tools
so today we're with our old friend the
Nissan Maxima specifically what we're
looking at is the e brake the tension is
enormous it's just so tight I could
barely move the the lever here really
should come up quite a bit so what we're
going to do is get it in the garage
we'll take off the rear wheels take a
look at the system and we'll correct the
problem so I'm on a hill I should be
able to roll backwards and nothing my
foot is off the brake we're not doing
anything here so it's definitely engaged
so here we're looking at the driver's
side if you're unfamiliar with the parts
of a braking system very quickly this is
your brake rotor your caliper and you
have one brake pad here another brake
pad right back there and the way that
this system works is as you depress the
brake pedal you've had your aaalac fluid
that runs through the brake line and you
have a piston in the caliper and as the
fluid engages with the piston it
squeezes these two brake pads and
compresses against the rotor and that's
how the car stops if you're curious on
how to replace any of these parts I'll
include a few links in the description
box below I have a number of videos on
them already but what we're curious as
you can see again this is the hydraulic
brake line this is okay we have no
interest in this right here this is the
e brake that leads into the cabin and as
you can see it's just it's engaged it
should be a little bit loose so this is
where the problem is so the first thing
I'm going to do is just remove this
brink here make sure you wear safety
glasses when you do this and as you can
see this guy just is not moving at all
let's clean this up with a wire brush
now this is just a little wd-40 or PB
Blaster this is a 17 millimeter size nut
here and there we go so what we're going
to do is just remove the parts clean
them up and we'll reinstall everything
the only reason why we have this problem
is just due to surface rust and just not
using the vehicle very often really so
we'll clean the parts and get this up
and running again now what I'm going to
do is just get in the car we'll move the
lever up and down a couple times just to
make sure that the system is working
correctly in other words nothing's bound
up inside the cable here so let's try
that out and as you can see the cable is
fine now if this was bound up if I still
couldn't move it then we have a problem
somewhere else but this works perfectly
fine okay
now the other thing that I'm checking is
that the piston and the caliper is now
frozen now this is the passenger side
when I checked on the driver's side the
brake pad just completely broke in half
so we'll also replace the red brake pads
I do have a video already on this I'll
include the link and the description box
below it's also on our website at cars
and toys net and this is just an adapter
tool let's see if the spins and it does
okay so this caliper is not frozen which
is good but we'll also replace the brake
pads and this car will be in good shape
so now we're on a slight incline just to
do a quick test the ebrake is off let my
foot off the brake pedal and we roll
back now with the e brake on my foot off
the brake and nothing can you break off
and now we roll back so we're in good
shape
you
