parking brake dragging too much?

["Walter Coe" <Whalt@xxxx>]

I installed a rear brake caliper only on one side so far and noticed that
the emergency brakes are dragging just a bit. Is this a bad thing? I
haven't put the regular brake pads on yet. This condition exists while the
emergency brake cable is disconnected. Is there some sort of adjustment
that I haven't noticed to loosen the emergency brake pads so that they don't
touch the rotor? Or is it okay for them to lightly drag on the rotor? This
is a new rotor, and I don't want to overheat it.

While working on this, I noticed that the hinge pins/bolts that hold the
emergency brake to the caliper had galled a bit when I removed them. So I
replaced them with ones from a junker. I was really surprised to see what
was previously done to the junker. Someone had removed a hinge pin and
didn't put it back together properly so that the hinge on one side was just
flopping around. From the uneven wear on that pad and the excessive wear to
all the pads in general, it looks like someone used the hell out of them.
My only guess is that the previous owner must have been into stunt driving
by locking up only the rear brakes to spin out. Strange. Maybe that
explains why the car was wreaked.

Walt Tampa, FL