using the e-brake

[Chopper]

yea... i mean..emergecny brake? id like to know when would be the emergency that would deem the time to apply that brake!!!!

When your pedal goes to the floor and nothing happens....early E-Brakes grabbed the driveshaft itself.

[etlsport]

yep... part of my driving lessons required to get my md license was i had to stop the car without using the brake pedal (pretending a brake line broke or something and the brake pedal didnt respond) good skill to have just in case

[tom4bren]

The only time that I used the handbrake as an emergency brake was when my altenator went bad & I had to drive 45 miles home on battery juice. I used the handbrake as much as possible so my brakelights wouldn't come on & waste the limited supply I had (& no radio or A/C). Most of the trip was in bumper 2 bumper traffic so it was significant. It worked & I made it but it was a nerve wracking drive.

[mdwyer]

When your pedal goes to the floor and nothing happens....early E-Brakes grabbed the driveshaft itself.

My dad told me about the e-brakes on the giant diesel-electric mining dump trucks. Regular braking was done by running the wheel motors backwards and heating up a big toaster-like resistor bank with the generated electricity. If they ever had to use the friction emergency brakes (I think he called them 'service brakes'), they would more or less burn out after one and only one use.

If you did a panic stop in something that large, you pretty much wrote it off and left it by the side of the road until you could go back and do a brake job on it.