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Another Hill hold question


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So my hill hold gets stuck on when i park it on a steep hill. I was at a friends house and he has a steep driveway. I go up it. press the brake and pull up the e-brake. I turn off the car. 5 min later get back in release the e-brake and pop in reverse and i dont move. it wont go forward or backwards. So i waited for like 2 hours and came back out and it released no problem! this is the second time. so is my hill hold too tight or what? and how do i adjust it?

thanks for your time

 

DC

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So you get in the car, press the brake pedal, push in the clutch, shift into reverse, and release the clutch, what happens?

 

Does your car die?

 

Does it try to go, but can't because the hill holder is engauged with the clutch fully released? (Like driving with the e-brake on?)

 

What happens when your normally driving and use your hill holder?

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So you get in the car, press the brake pedal, push in the clutch, shift into reverse, and release the clutch, what happens?

 

Does your car die?

 

Does it try to go, but can't because the hill holder is engauged with the clutch fully released? (Like driving with the e-brake on?)

 

What happens when your normally driving and use your hill holder?

yeah, it does not die it just feels like i am trying to move with the ebrake on. only this ebrake is super powerful and will not let my car move even a inch! when i am normally driving it works just fine. although i am a little hestiant on using it on any bigger hills in fear of it locking up. but smaller hills it works fine and releases fine.

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The clutch is what releases the Hill holder. I would be quite interested to see if the Hill Holder was what actually what the problem was. Let us know what happens after you adjust it.

 

Wrong - the hill holder is released by a cable from the clutch fork to the hill-holder unit under the brake master cylinder. Likely the hill-holder itself is getting worn out - the shaft in them gets sloppy and sometimes the return spring will not pull them back to release the brake pressure - or the cable is improperly adjusted.

 

GD

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Wrong - the hill holder is released by a cable from the clutch fork to the hill-holder unit under the brake master cylinder. Likely the hill-holder itself is getting worn out - the shaft in them gets sloppy and sometimes the return spring will not pull them back to release the brake pressure - or the cable is improperly adjusted.

 

GD

 

Actually GeneralDisorder is WRONG. The hill holder is released by magic elves that live in the Clutch and send radio signal to gremlins in the Master Cylinder. ......Glad we clarified all that .....

 

Anyways pushing in the clutch pedal in part controls the magic Hill Holder technology.

 

Look for the Clutch fork. The cable coming from the firewall attached to the clutch fork is your clutch cable as you probably already know. This pulls the fork toward the firewall.

 

There is another cable attached to the clutch fork coming from the front side. If you depress your clutch pedal, the hill holder cable is pulled by the clutch fork. If you are on an incline then the hill holder mechanism engages your front passenger and rear driver side brakes. or somthing to that effect.

 

If you want to adjust it then you I am pretty sure that you will just need to loosen the nuts on the end of that cable. Possibly you may also need to adjust your clutch cable to compensate for the HH cable adjustment. There is some sweet spot in there.

 

When a clutch is burning out some folks tighten there clutch cable and this pulls the hill holder cable past the sweet spot.

 

Another popular option is to remove the hill holder cable and put a high tension spring in its place. Just to put some tension on you clutch fork. Some people think you can just remove the Hill Holder cable and be done with it. I advise putting the spring in there, if you value your throwout bearing.

 

I am only throwing out ideas to move this thread along.

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So my hill hold gets stuck on when i park it on a steep hill. I was at a friends house and he has a steep driveway. I go up it. press the brake and pull up the e-brake. I turn off the car. 5 min later get back in release the e-brake and pop in reverse and i dont move. it wont go forward or backwards. So i waited for like 2 hours and came back out and it released no problem! this is the second time. so is my hill hold too tight or what? and how do i adjust it?

thanks for your time

 

DC

 

The hill holder is a really simple little device. Basically its a check valve that is actuated by a large steel ball. WHen the car is pointing up, the ball rolls back and closes the valve in conjunction with the cable that comes off the clutch fork. The hill holder only actuates one front brake. This cable needs to be adjusted. The cable is too tight, so the valve is never fully releasing. i don't understand the 2 hour part, unless you have some internal leakage in the hill holder. Another possability is that the retun spring is broken on the hill holder.

 

nipper

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The hill holder only actuates one front brake.

 

nipper

It seems to be a moot point, but Subaru's Hill Holder Technology does actuate the front RH and rear LH brakes. I think this is so the car's rear end won't slide from side to side when on an incline.

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if your car is going to slide backwards with the brakes aplllied after coming to a halt from a forward direction, you have a much bigger problem. Your supposed to stop behind the drawbridge gates, not in front of them. If you loose traction and slide backwards on two wheels, your not going to have the traction to pull forward either.

 

 

nipper

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if your car is going to slide backwards with the brakes aplllied after coming to a halt from a forward direction, you have a much bigger problem. Your supposed to stop behind the drawbridge gates, not in front of them. If you loose traction and slide backwards on two wheels, your not going to have the traction to pull forward either.

 

 

nipper

 

 

I said nothing about the car sliding backwards. I said from side to side. According to your explanation of hillholder, both rear wheels and one front tire would have no braking.

 

yodannyc's car wouldnt move at all. If only one front brake was applied then I would think that the car would probably spin around using that tire as some sort of pivot.

 

When you choke wheels on a semi-trailer do you just put one the left front wheel? I put wheels chokes on either side of the trailer. Applying chokes to one tire only would create a pivot point. This would be a dangerous.

 

You seem to understand how the rest of the system works. I cant understand what would make you think that it only applied one front brake though. Does this make sense?

 

We all agree that the Hill Holder cable should be adjusted to troubleshoot the system. I am curious to see if this solves the problem.

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Actually I looked at my FSM for my 1988 GL. I was going to let this go, but it states explicitly that the LF brake is the only brake that is applied via the hill holder. I have also transplanted one of these from a doner into another manual transmission car. Also if you follow the brake line you will see that it goes to only one brake.

 

nipper

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Actually I looked at my FSM for my 1988 GL. I was going to let this go, but it states explicitly that the LF brake is the only brake that is applied via the hill holder. I have also transplanted one of these from a doner into another manual transmission car. Also if you follow the brake line you will see that it goes to only one brake.

 

nipper

I have seen it described as engaging a single brake channel. I have never seen it referenced as going to just the Driver front brake.

 

The cable we have been referring to as the Hill Holder cable is called the PHV Cable.

 

It goes from the Clutch release fork to the PHV (Pressure Hold Valve) which we have been loosely referring to as the Hill Holder. There is one line on the PHV that goes to the master cylinder and two other lines.

 

One of the two other lines goes straight to the right front brake. The other line goes to a proportioning valve in the rear.

 

The proportioning valve in the rear has four lines attaced to it. One from the PHV , one from the master cylinder , one out the left rear and one out to the right rear. The proportioning valve has check valve in it. When the PHV sends hydrualic fluid to the rear it goes only to the driver rear. If the brakes are pushed then the check vavle allows the fluid to go to both rear tires.

 

Newer versions of Subaru Hill Holder as seen on the forester also control the front right and driver rear brakes. I dont understand why Subaru would have deviated from this as it would be ridiculous to have only one front tire braking on a hill. This would not work well at all.

 

I am not saying your 88 doesnt have this setup.

 

I reference Mitchell-on-Demand, Chiltons, Haynes, Subaru Drive Magazine article from 2003. I guess we could both be right. I will tear aport a PHV to see if I can figure out which brake line you are talking about.

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  • 8 years later...

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