need some help, ebrake seized?

Liquid_G

So I was working in the garage today, moved the car out to the driveway about 10am..

Later today around 5pm I go to move the car back in the garage, and the damn thing wont move.. It feels like the e-brake is stuck on.. I haven't really driven the car since last week, but moved it in and out of the garage on Saturday as well without issue.

I pulled on the ebrake handle a dozen or so times trying to get it to budge.. (to clarify, the ebrake handle does disengage normally..) I can force the car to roll back a little if I give it a good amount of throttle in reverse, and by force I mean WAYYY more throttle than it should need, car almost stalls when doing that.. I've tried going forward and it really feels like its the rear that's stuck.. I'm afraid to give it too much forward throttle because I'd rather not crash thru the garage wall if it lets go.. Also when I got it to move, the ABS, slip and VDC lights came on.. if I shut the car off they go away.. and for what its worth the brake pedal feels hard as a rock, but not sure if its related..

If it matters, temps were about 75 and humid when I moved it out, and around 90 with same stupid humidity when I tried to move it a few hours ago..

I checked fluid levels in the reservoir and they were at the top.. Brakes are Akebonos with the RacingBrake pads and rotors.. but probably have 3k miles on them now so I don't think it could be anything with that..

Haven't pulled the wheel off and tried to check but anyone have any ideas?

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wstar

The VDC/Slip stuff is probably because one or more wheels are stuck while the others are rolling, although I'm surprised it comes on at all if you're barely creeping in the driveway. Normally VDC errors aren't detected until you get up to some basic speed like 15mph or so.

You really need to lift the car up and spin the wheels by hand and confirm which ones are stuck (it may even only be one corner), and then take it from there. You can check the fronts with just one wheel up, but you should probably raise the whole rear or it'll be hard to tell the difference between a problem drag and just differential pull between the one in the air and the one on the ground.

Brake pedal "hard as a rock" meaning it doesn't move at all, even when the engine's on? It should move...

Have you inspected to make sure it's not something stupidly unexpected and mechanical? Like, I donno, somehow a golf ball went flying and got wedged in somewhere and is physically seizing the rotor or the wheel or something?

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Liquid_G

Thanks for the reply.. that what I assumed about the vdc/slip lights too.. I went out late last night when it cooled down and tried to move it again.. it still doesn't move freely but wasn't totally stuck, and was able to inch the car back in the garage.. I'll have to make some time over the next few days to pull the wheel and rotor off. tough for me to do during the week with work and all.. Just wonder if with the heat and humidity something rusted up or something dumb like that? seems unlikely but was really hoping to hear from someone who had this problem before.

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wstar

Nothing should just "rust up" in the time it took you to work in your garage in one day. Something else is seriously wrong there. Before you even take wheels off, just lift the car and spin them all and find out for sure which one(s) are dragging.

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370Z Purist

Do this. Not worth assuming anything until you have an idea of what is causing it. A (possibly) single seized caliper is one thing, but all four wheels locked up because of some massive vacuum issue is quite another.

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-Phil

"Since one of my brake light bulbs just went out, the forum told me that my piston rings are about to blow."

Liquid_G

Ok so the TL ; DR version is I'm a big dumbass..

Long version. Story time:


So on the way home to Chicago from our Wekfest NJ trip 2 weeks ago, I was having a problem with the car where I would press the gas and would have almost no power.. I could cruise and RPMs would stay up, but I'd press the gas and the rpm's would only slowly start climb.. It was at this point that people in our caravan told me my brake lights were on, even though I wasn't pressing the brake.

Got the car home and did some forum searching, had one guy report the same thing, (Mike I believe) and he said his brakelight switch attached to the brake pedal needed adjustment. For those that don't know, it looks kinda like this. Like a plunger type switch that rests against the arm of the brake pedal

So I unscrewed it, tested it about 1000 times with a multimeter, didn't seem like that was it. So I put it back in and started checking other things.. I noticed then that when I pressed the brake, my parking lights were lighting up.. after checking a few things, I eventually traced that to be a short in the connector for my jdm rear foglight.. My throttle problem only happened at night, and what was happening was the short was feeding power from the headlight circuit into the brake light circuit, and because the ecu thought the brakes were being applied, it limited the throttle to only 15%. So after fixing that last week, I didn't really even drive the car, only moved the car in and out of the garage onto the driveway a few times..


So last night I got the car up in the air, and none of the wheels wheels would spin freely. Pulled off one of the back wheels and undid the cailper bolts, e-brake was fine, but the caliper had pressure on it. So I'm thinking great wtf is this now.. Checked fluid levels again.. that was fine, Thinking maybe ABS was freaking out I pulled the battery to try and reset the ecu.. nothing..

It was at that point I had the wife disconnect that brake light switch thinking maybe there was something wrong with that? There was, but it wasn't electrical..

Remember when I pulled out that brake light switch? When I put it back in I had that thing cranked all the way down, so much so that it was actually pressing the fking brake pedal in.. Got under the dash and loosened it up and sure enough the brake pedal rises like a whole inch.. It wasn't pressed enough for the brakelights to go on, but enough to prevent the car from moving.. Totally explains why my brake pedal felt so hard..

So ya I'm a dumbass.. Just glad it wasn't something more serious.. Thanks for the suggestions guys..

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haitech

At least you can admit your fault lol

Jsolo

Be glad it was just a brake switch and a not a clutch switch, and what if you went driving. Repairs might of been a bit more costly.

cptspeed

As a troubleshooter, I find that when something doesn't make sense, it is always something that I did to cause the problem. Anyone ever heard of the K.I.S.S motto. Keep it simple stupid, followed by, what was the last thing I did? Way to keep up the hunt. Many would have given up!

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Trips

I would've kept my mouth shut


Great to hear it was resolved though