One of the rear rotors was so gone, that the rust lip on it was very evident.
I got a whole rear brake kit from FCP Euro, which included rotors, pads, pins, shims, parking brake shoes, parking brake clips, and springs. I was hoping that the reason why the rear parking brake wasn’t working was due to worn pads or rusted springs/tensioners. I just did not want to tackle the cables, since it looked like way too much to do. So, my friend and I proceeded on working on the car.
Taking out the rear wheels was hard. There was so much corrosion and rust that I had to kick the tires from the inside in order to knock the wheels off. When we took everything apart, we discovered that the rear drivers side rotor was way worse than we thought it could be. This was a red flag for something bigger.
The inside of the rear drivers side rotor was totally rusted.
Additionally, all of the rear pins looked like this.
New pins.
The pads for the parking brake did not look bad at all, it actually looked like they were barely used. We still decided to use everything that the kit offered. It seemed like the brake shoe holders were way too big though, like they were meant for another car (because they were).
After assembling everything, we tried to put on the new pads on the calipers. The passenger side caliper was perfect, but the driver side had an issue with the inside piston, due to the fact that it was not being compressed. It even refused to move when the brakes were engaged. This explained why the rotor looked that bad, because it wasn’t being engaged by the pads. This meant that I had to get a new caliper, which was way harder to do than I thought it would be. Luckily IPD had some rebuilt ones, which also required me to return the old one to them as a core. This allows them to rebuild broken calipers and keep more Volvos on the road!
So, after spending almost 4 hours, my parking brake was still not working, and one of my rear calipers was still not doing its job. I had to load it with old pads, but decided to keep the new rotor.
After a month and a half, I got a new caliper from IPD. It took a while for them to ship everything, because I also ordered some parking brake cables, which were on back order. I also needed a new brake lines to replace the hard line on the caliper, since the old one had a nut that was seized on it, making it impossible to remove nor re-use. I thought that buying some braided steel lines would do the trick. So, we proceeded on disassembling the 850 even more than last time.
Taking out all the interior bits to reach the parking brake cables wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. The center console only took 20 minutes (since I have done it like 6 times before that).
The rear seat bottom was quick to take out. The carpets weren’t an issue to move around and the parking brake cables were easy to take out once I unbolted the 3 13mm bolts from the handbrake.
While taking out the cables from underneath the carpets, I found a lot of coins, even some quarters from 1962! Routing the cables back wasn’t too hard either, but connecting them to the dog ears and making them seal to the rear subframe was challenging, requiring the help of my friend. However, my troubles were far from over.
After thinking that I was done, I had two different issues. One of them was that my physical handbrake wasn’t working anymore. It was just stuck on the bottom and the spring inside was stuck. This is what it looked like. On top of that, the braided steel brake lines that I wanted to use were not the ones that could replace the hard line to the caliper. They were shorter and did not have the proper threads.
I was completely defeated. There was brake fluid pouring down, it was getting colder, and darker. I had just spent 6-7 hours on a job that didn’t even fix my problems with my 850R. I had to assemble everything back and drive the car back home even more broken than it was in the beginning.
The next day, I bought some final parts for the brake job. I got a new handbrake from ebay, which arrived 3 days later! I lifted the center console again and attached everything back. When I drove the car back home, I didn’t put the screws and bolts back on the center console, since I would have to lift it up again.
I also needed to get a hardline to the caliper, which was impossible to find! I could not locate them on the schematics nor by description anywhere online. I turned to people who were parting out Volvos on Marketplace, which was also a huge dead end. But, luckily the people on Mus T gave me some clues on where to find the hard line! They mentioned that the line they bought had the part number of AA0650-S. This is a part that is also compatible with the 240s, and has an alternative part number of 1277117. Still, I could not find a single place that stocked the part, besides Classic Volvo Restoration! The people there were very nice, they confirmed that the part was in stock and sent it to me in around 3 days. They did, however, say that the line might not be for the 850. When I got the line, I threaded it onto the caliper, and it fit! So, this line is the proper one for the 850s rear calipers!!!
I went to fit everything again on the car for one last time. I installed the new caliper with the new pads and tried to adjust the parking brake through the access hole. The line and the caliper fit, but the parking brake was not being adjusted. So we took everything apart, used some WD40 on the tensioner cog, but the parking brake was just not engaging no matter what we did. To add more salt to the injury, the brakes felt spongy because an air bubble found its way into the brake lines. I was just defeated again. We put everything back together, and I decided that after 3 separate days of working on the brakes and after almost 18 hours of work, I am going to take the car to the Volvo dealership for the first time in my 5 month ownership. It was time.
Driving the car back home was sketchy. The rear brakes were not working, and I had to go pretty deep into the pedal for the car to brake. It was also raining outside, which did not help at all. Luckily, I made it home safe.
I was just so happy that I can finally have the rear brakes and the parking brake working again, I did not care how much I would spend. I asked the dealership to investigate the parking brake and to do a brake fluid bleed/flush for the air bubble to get out.
6 hours later, the dealership called me and they found the culprit. The springs that FCP Euro provided with their kit weren’t the right ones and were the reason why nothing was working. They changed out the springs and made the parking brake engage, but in the end, I had to spend almost $1000 on everything. All because of getting wrong parts from a kit that was meant for the 850. Nonetheless, when I received the car and tested everything, I was so happy that its functional and safe again! It took a while, but the 850 is getting better and better!