I'm getting a grinding noise from both rear end wheels. First I thought it was rear wheel bearings, but when I took the wheels, calipers and rotors off, I don't get any discernible grinding or noise from the hub area nor the differential.

So I put the rotor back on and spin the wheel and get a lot of grinding. My brake shoe adjuster is covered with black dust, I presume from the constant rubbing since I don't pull the hand brake while driving, just while parked.

When I pull the hand brake I do see the bottom of the shoe spread on both sides of the car, then the shoes retract to home when the hand brake is released.

I see the splined adjuster at the top of the shoe in the picture. I just spin the splined nut with a screwdriver, correct? An that spring is the only thing holding the splined adjuster in place?

Is there somewhere else to adjust cable slack, maybe near the hand brake?

 

To answer my own question, yes that spring holds the spline nut in place. I turned the nuts one notch from full close on both sides and the scraping sound is gone. The shoes still grab the rotors good when the lever is pulled, so I'm not going to bother with any additional adjustment. I still have some rear end grinding when in gear, which turns into a louder howling as speed is increased, so trying to pinpoint where that is.

 

13udhha , what speed are you getting the GROWLING sound ?

The hand brake cables are factory set and normally don't require adjusting , where you made the adjustment , at the shoe is correct , however , you normally adjust the shoe OUT not IN .

Cheers ,

 

There was a scraping due to the brake show being set too close to the rotor. it became apparent when I took the rotors off and spun the hub. the scraping went away and is still gone after the adjustment, but there is still a growl when the car is put in gear. then it progressively gets louder and turns into sort of a howl as you go faster.

I put my stethoscope around the differential and hubs today just at idle in drive. The hubs sound louder but I'm not 100% convinced that's the culprit. The diff had some grumbling, but the hub area was just a bit louder depending upon where I put the probe. Was loudest on the part of the hub that the u-joint tucks behind. I looked at the u-joints and they look OK, and don't seem to have any play. Plus I thought they'd click more than grind or howl, right?

 

Hey there, what year is your Jag? Did you finally fix it? How? I have the same issues. Thanks for any help...Mike

 

I ended up tearing my whole parking brake system out to get rid of the noise. Finally took it to my mechanic and he put me up on the hoist in the car. Put it in drive and he went around with stethoscope. It was my hanger bearing which is non replaceable. Just put in a used driveshaft and all is quiet.

 

I figure I have the same issue with scraping hand brakes.
There is a scraping noise in both rear wheels. When I take of the rotors, the noise is gone.
It`s not the brake covers: if I remove the rotors halfway, they are not anywhere near the covers but the scraping sound is still there.

I noticed there is some "play" in the parking brakes when the handbrake is off. not sure if that is normal. Anyone ?
I may decide to take the whole thing out and see if I can figure out what is going on.
Frankly speaking, I never use the handbrakes and could do without. Annual inspection probably will have a different view on that...

 

I took a closer look. I noticed the "play" is coming from the parking brake pin & compression spring. I have no idea if that is normal and if not how to fix it.
To me it seems strange that the brake shoes can move left,right, up and down. Both with hand brakes on and off.
Really need some urgent help on this. I need to install my new rotors asap and would like to have this problem fixed.

 

Still a mystery and help would be very much appreciated

Update: I have taken out one of parking brakes and cleaned up all parts. All parts look ok (incl. the shoes).
Without the parking brake the noise is gone.
I fitted the parking brake back on and set the adjuster at the top at the "lowest" position. As far as I can judge the shoes cant be pushed in any further top and bottom.
Still a scraping sound. I also spotted some scrape marks on the inside of my new rotors so I am pretty sure the shoes cause the sound.
There still is some tollerance in the shoes: I can move them up/down/left/right a couple of mm. by hand.

So I see 2 possible causes:
1. For some reason some parts are not correct (shoes or adjuster). This would be strange: all parts look "original"
2. The tollerance is not supposed to be there or bigger than it should be. I just cant figure out what would cause that.
Interesting is that the issue occurs on both rear wheels.

I cannot simply take out the parking brakes since the car wouldnt pass annual inspection and it might even be an issue with insurrance if the car would be involved in some accident.

Come on forum friends: please share your thoughts.

 

Update:
Still havent figured out why the shoes "touch" the drum. I tried fitting the shoes in the rotor on the table to check how much space for tollerance there was. Just 1 or 2 mm in each direction. Which is a lot less than the tollerance the brakes actually have.

I don't have time or interest to figure out more so I focussed on a solution.
I shortened the brake shoes about 1 mm on each end with a file and steel brush. This allows the brakes shoes to extract further in, increasing the tollerance a couple of mm. Fitted them back on and the noise is gone most of the time.
It looks like sometimes the shoes get pushed down to far and there is a slight scrape coming from the bottom section of the shoe. I expect forces will push the shoes back in place and/or over time the shoes will simply wear down on that spot.

Next to do is to adjust the cable because the travel to get the brakes on is now a lot longer.

Still curious if anyone had this problem before or has an idea what could have caused the issue.