Hermann, the newer parking brake should hold on even a steep hill. The
"trick" is to put enough slack in the cable before adjusting the rear
shoes. Otherwise one end of the shoe adjuster bar is pushing on the
parking brake cable lever rather than the metal part of the shoe. This
still tightens the brake adjustment but at the expense of limiting the
range of motion of the cable lever.

Mark

Hermann the German wrote:
>
> IMHO, the emergency brakes are a joke. Both my Westy and syncro have
> to be in first or granny respectively to stop rolling backwards on
> our  moderately sloped driveway. Nothing so far has changed that in 7
> years of ownership: new brakes, new cables, readjusting, replacing,
> you name it we've done it. Four years ago the doorbell rang late at
> night. A police officer kindly informed me that the Westy had
> slowly rolled down the driveway and was blocking the street. I still
> had the old wasserleaker in it, and the low compression together with
> the emergency brake could not hold the van in place. For a while I
> used a choc-bloc (sp?) with a long rope. After starting the van I
> would put in in first, jank the rope and reel in the bloc. The back
> out of our driveway.
> Cheers,
> Hermann de Boer
>