Parking Brake Handles on 5.3 Face-Lifts

XJ-S
1

For the first time tonight, I tried activating the parking brake on Superblack. At first attempts, her handle would just go up and down w/o activating them, worrying me that maybe I had something broken inside the handle assembly or possible a broken wire to the brake itself. :grimacing: I also noticed that instead of the button on the tip of the handle being a bit ā€œprotuberantā€ (like it is on Superblueā€™s) it was actually a bit recessed back into the tip of the handle. Anyway, I was able to fit the tip of my finger into the opening and against it, and after a rather disturbing loud SNAP noise inside the handle, the brake apparently activated on one of the upward swings of the handle, with the normal slight resistance and ā€œratchetingā€ heard and felt. However, the button remains recessed and I canā€™t seem to ā€œdeactivateā€ the brake now, by pressing it while dropping the handle down. :confounded:

So, is the above behavior with the recessed button and all the norm for a 5.3, as it is not how it seems to operate for my 4.0, or is something amiss? :confused: Question is how do I get it to deactivate? I also wonder if something is rusted up on the linkage assembly that is causing the issue. IIRC, the parking brake line crosses underneath the car to the opposite rear wheel. If you recall, that is the area of the underside where I have the rust issue with the loose trailing radius arm and all. :frowning_face:

In the meantime, I told my tech bud to try spraying some graphite powder down into the button ā€œholeā€ tomorrow while pushing the button and moving the handle up and down repeatedly, in the event it is just something in the handle assembly hanging up due to nonuse over the years. :crossed_fingers:

btw, kinda odd that if the brake is indeed activated, why do I not have a parking brake warning light activated on my warning light indicator strip? In fact, and I know this has come up with her before on an earlier post of mine, but whenever you press the brake pedal down the ā€œbulb failureā€ light lights up, although both rear brakes lights and the high stop (which we finally got reinstalled today :joy:) all light up properly. :confused:

2

Are you sure the the plastic handle has not moved in relation to the body of the handbrake?
It is possible to remove the plastic grip completely, at least on pre facelift. This will appear the same as a ā€œrecessedā€ button.
On stop lamps and bulb failure warning, it may be a case of strange happenings in the twin filament stop/tail bulb. I have had such strange feedback issues when one of the filaments fail and contact the other.

3

The parking brake warning is on the right of oil pressure light. Does it come on with the self test when you turn the ignition on?

There is a bulb failure check built into the brake circuit that is tested by having the handbrake on and headlights off, when you press the brake pedal, the bulb failure light should come on if the bulbs are OK. It sounds like you have a problem somewhere in the parking brake electrical warning system that tells the bulb failure system it is on, but doesnā€™t light its own warning light.