Volvo Maintenance Hints for 7xx/9xx - Bill Garland's Nuclear ...

Cable Replacement:
Replacing One Side of the Cable. [Inquiry] How do I replace one side of my emergency brake cable?
[Response: Peter Fluitman] Remove the right wheel and the caliper (no need to break into the hydraulics).
Then pull off the rotor which is secured by the screwed-in guide pin. Remove the handbrake shoes. The
cable is held in by a pin in the actuating mechanism. Assemble the cable in the mechanism and feed it
through the backplate. Remember to put the rubber boot back. Feed the cable through the 2 loops on the
axle casing. Then attach the other end of the cable. You'll need to slacken the cable off inside the car
underneath the centre console (you shorten the outer cable). You'll need a couple of new R clips for the
clevis pins. I normally remove both, clip the link to the new cable, then stick it back onto the pivot on the axle.
Re-fit the handbrake shoes, the disk and the caliper Adjust by setting the cable back to give you 5 or 6 clicks
on the ratchet.
Replacing the Long Cable Assembly to the Console. [Tips from Ken] A few months ago, the little 'peg' on the
end of the cable that goes into the parking brake lever broke, leaving me with no parking brake. Not a big
deal since the car is an automatic, but something I still like having the use of. The job started out by opening
up the center armrest/console area and removing the rear ashtray and ashtray mounting fixture. Loosen up
the cable to the max by turning the plastic adjusting nut as much as possible.
Loosened the lugnuts of both wheels (just in case) and jacked up the rear of the vehicle (after chocking the
front wheels on both sides from rear and front... THIS IS A MUST) and placed it on jackstands. Herein lies
the troubles that I encountered: I do not have a nice floor jack. I have a bottlejack. What happened is that the
bottlejack brought the vehicle up to a nice height, BUT when I lowered the car back down on jackstands
located under the axle, the car would lower even more since the weight was still on the suspension. This
resulted in a very low clearance. Not the ideal situation for getting under the vehicle. You need a good
amount of clearance to comfortably get under the vehicle to disconnect things.
Second problem. The long cable goes to the LEFT parking brake. I removed the left wheel and rotor and
removed the brake shoes. Removing the parking brake shoes is a huge pain because of the strong springs.
While I was at it, I banged out the wheel studs because they needed replacing. Figured it was a good time to
take care of it. I threaded the leftside cable back towards the center of the vehicle where there was a little
mounting piece and started disconnecting things. There are 2 cotter pins and R-type retaining clips there.
This is where my second problem occurred. One of the pins and clips came off with no problems. I chose to
save and reuse the clip. The other clip came out without a problem but the pin was rusted in there pretty
solidly. This pin held the rightside cable in. Great, time to break out the PBlaster spray. After wiggling and
banging at the pin for a good 10 minutes, it came out.
Finally, with everything disconnected, I threaded the cable back. About 1/2 between the rear axle and the
hole into the console inside the vehicle, there is another retaining bracket. In order to remove the cable, you
have to undo the bracket, at least I think you do. This requires a 10mm wrench for one side, and a 10mm
socket for the other side. Finally, a little yanking and tugging and a lot of bad words later, I got the cable out.
Putting the new cable in was very, very easy and you basically just do everything in reverse.
So, what have we learned? If you have a lift and power tools, this job will take you all of 15 minutes. If you
are like me, it will take you 2.5 hours including cleanup time. On the plus side, I have a working parking
brake again, and it feels much more smooth and consistent than it used to before!
960 Cable and Shoe Replacement
[Tips: Paul Golden] In a 960 with independent rear suspension, the rear e-brake hardware and shoes and
dust shields were all gone and the cable from lever to axle was broke, all thanks to extensive rusting. There
was no way I was taking out the gas tank to access the cable above. I was able to replace the cables by
removing the exhaust system behind the catalytic converter as well as the heat shield. There is a cable