E Brake on a Cadillac Srx

And now, the post you have all been waiting for..........well, those of you who want to fix the Emergency brake on you Cadillac Srx that is.  I will admit to you that I found this seemingly simple repair to be one of great annoyance.  There is a spring located on the end of the e-brake that hooks onto the back side of the rotor  on the rear wheels of this car.  Unless you are superman, aquaman and shazaam all rolled into one, you are not going to be able to do this.  Until now.......

Ok here it goes.  The spring is located on the rear of the brake rotor and there is about three things in the way.  In other words there is no room for you hands in order to put that spring back onto the lever that is underneath the brake rotor.  If you are not a zen mechanic, you had better be at this point because this little bugger will make you want to scream and rant and rave.  Assuming you have tried everything except bashing it with a hammer, I will show you how to put it on with a minimum of fuss and still retain you zen composure.

Here is a picture of the spring attached to the lever on the backside of the rotor/bearing assembly.

That spring is really really really stiff and hard to compress but you can do it with your hands, just wear some mechanix gloves so you don't pinch the crap out of your fingers.  Move the spring upwards towards the cable and away from the brake lever.  You will only be able to move it about an inch, but when you have it an inch or so up from the lever, you will see there is a notch right before it becomes cable.  Have a ziptie and an assistant ready.  With the spring drawn up about an inch, have your assistant zip tie the notch and then slowly release the spring.  The zip tie should hold it and then you can connect the spring to the brake lever.

One final point here:  this procedure is only for putting the spring back on the e-brake lever with the brake rotor off.  How you get it off is up to you but in my case I was only changing the wheel bearing assembly.  For those who are interested in finding a tool to accomplish this task I say this:   forget it. I already tried that and it was a waste of money and dismal failure.  The fix to this is strength, patience, a zen attitude, and zip ties.