Two weeks later and my two hour brake job is finally finished. Had to call in the big guns for help (Carla, Jesse and Justin). Carla and Jesse pretty much changed out the right side springs with just a little coaching from me. While I was hooking up the new parking brake cable (I'll get to that in a minute) Carla and Justin changed out the left side spring. Carla originally set out to be a pre-K special ed teacher, but I think she needs to change her career path to a mechanic. I was impressed!
The only big problem we ran into was the new parking brake cable. I couldn't find one locally, so I ordered one, ship to home, from AutoZone. I SHOULD have went to GM dealer and ordered a good one. This one was made in China . . . and guess what? I had to modify it to make it work! It has three prongs that push in as you slide it through the hole in the backing plate and once in place the spread back out and lock it in. The problem is the gap between the end of the prongs and piece that sets on the back of the backing plate was only about half the thickness of the backing plate, so they couldn't pop back out on the other side. I had to use a cut-off wheel on the clips that hold it in the backing plate and make them short enough to actually clip into the backing plate.
Other than that, everything well. It rolls good and stops good. Now I just have to clean up the mess in the yard.
