Parking Brakes Sticking - 1997 American Eagle

[jd956jd956]

Greetings from Lake Conroe, Texas. Just returned from Mobile, Alabama. The coach performed very well, except now notice that after starting up and having full air pressure built up in the tanks, my parking brakes remain set after depressing the parking brake yellow knob on the dash. It also happened once this past summer while in Colorado. At that time, we were in Creede at 10,000 feet so thought the altitude may have caused it to act up. This time, I had to depress, then re-apply the parking brake a few times before they released. No doubt about it, the brakes were still set despite the tanks being full of air... Any ideas / similar experiences would be most appreciated, THANK YOU, Jeff... PS - 1997 Spartan Mountainmaster Chassis

[Pigman1]

When was the last time your roller pins and cams were inspected and lubed? Sounds like they might be hanging up.

John

[jd956jd956]

Hello John, I have owned this coach for almost two years - purchased it from original owner. I do all the maintenance and sadly am not familiar with "roller pins". It is lubed every 3-4 thousand miles, but I will have to investigate the pins. Thank you for your advice.

[Pigman1]

If you have disk brakes on the front, you're OK on them. Pull the wheels and drums and use a pry bar to move the shoes back and to drop the rollers. I clean the rollers and brake S cams with spray brake cleaner and then lube with high temp brake grease (purple) I got in a small can from NAPA. My Freightliiner books say it should be done about every 3000 miles, but it's an expensive job if you take it to a dealer and a dirty, heavy one if you do it yourself. I do my own maintenance and do it every second year, which seems to work. If you have a Meritor axle and brake setup, I have a Meritor brake manual in . PDF format I would be glad to email you if you send me a PM with your email address. I don't know how to post a .PDF through the forum.

[jd956jd956]

Turned out one of the two rear brake chambers had an internal diaphragm leak which would not allow one side to release. Researched the net, bought TWO new rear brake chambers from NAPA and swapped them both out. Now they work like they were intended!