Thread: EPB - Park brake module fixed IN SITU

Although my symptoms were the same, our EPB must have done something funky.

I took a Friday off work, all of Saturday and most of Sunday working to unwind the bloody thing and it would not budge.

I had to give up and get the whole module replaced.

I did however, find the time to get rear wheel off, brakes off and adjusted and then back together again down to about 10 minutes at the end of it all, working out all those fiddly springs and locating pins

Originally Posted by Stuart02

Needless to say my wife is pretty keen for us to try and save $3k with some DIY! What kind of sealant do folks use?

What's been the experience getting that shield off? I have an angle grinder but I'm out at the point I'm using it on the car to shear of rusted bolts!

Depending on what your EPB needs, this is another video showing winding it and re-engaging the module in-vehicle without removing:
I REPAIR EPB MODULE on a Land Rover Discovery 3 / LR3 / RRS for 0$ - YouTube

As for sealant, I used Permatex Ultra Black RTV silicone - you probably don't need the oil resistance it has but i just happened to have that on hand at the time.

I wonder what the average lifespan of these units are, mine seem to last about 5 years. I just had mine replaced including the brake drums and discs as they were worn too.

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

I wonder what the average lifespan of these units are, mine seem to last about 5 years. I just had mine replaced including the brake drums and discs as they were worn too.

Mine is 12 years because I service it annually by ensuring I perform a reset of the handbrake pad position. These only fail if the handbrake isn’t serviced and the unit over extends.

Mine is 14 years old and used every day but adjusted every 12-18 months. Clean out the drums also with compressed air at same time. This I think makes the most difference in smooth reliable operation.

Well it nearly killed my wife and I but we were successful in the end, after about 8 hours, several cups of tea and a few gins. There were a couple of key differences to everything we read and watched which made things harder and forced us to find our own approach. The first was the space between the rear diff and the front of the housing. I don't know if the e-diff housing is different to the standard one, but there's no way on earth anyone was getting those torque screws out of the EPB module lid in situ, let alone getting the lid off or unjamming the mechanism. So we decided to go from the back to get to the module.

The other difference, it turns out, is that the spare wheel support member is more like a solid shield with a barely-arm-sized hole in it, rather than just the two splayed beams with a space that you'll see blokes in the youtube videos waving angle grinders and jemmy bars around in. So everything from the back of the car, to remove that backing/mounting plate and get to the module, requires forcing your arm through the holes and gaps. We're both quite badly bruised on our forearms!

Anyway so we got the plate off, from which point we figured that if we unscrewed at least one of the cables from the outside of the module, and pulled out the wiring loom, we could twist the module right around with the cables still attached, so that we could get the lid off and do the unjamming and unwinding from the back (albeit with scant room to move). The biggest thing I could get past the spare wheel backing plate to unjam with was a blunt wood chisel and small hammer, but with persistence it was enough to get the spindle moving. From there it was bordering on pleasant, mainly because all the feeling had gone from beyond our elbows.

I would still say it's _theoretically_ a one person job, but the moral support and tagging out made it much more survivable. A hoist would have made things only slightly easier (and always safer) than vehicle stands, but the hard part was just shoving arms through holes.

What bewilders me is why that EPB module couldn't just face the other way for starters, so that once the mounting plate is off, you're looking at the lid. That'd almost make it a no brainer. There's no reason it couldn't pull the cables just as well if turned around. And yeah, the access past the spare wheel mounting could easily have been made better if serviceability was a priority...

Originally Posted by DiscoJeffster

Mine is 12 years because I service it annually by ensuring I perform a reset of the handbrake pad position. These only fail if the handbrake isn’t serviced and the unit over extends.

Same... My MY11 is on original unit, used all the time.

I do NOT drive through it to take off though (unless offroad and required) and I flush after sand/mud and adjust / service every year

The handbrake mechanism (drum, etc) in my 74 RRC came from an 81.

42 years old, original shoes, will lock the back wheels on gravel................. I suppose that could be called a 'third world problem'.

DL