The parking brake on my 99 honda civic won’t fully disengage. If you use it when you go to put the lever down it pops back up slightly. Just barely one click and sometimes not even that. I just replaced the rear brake drums, shoes, wheel cylinders, and it was badly needed. I thought that this would solve my parking brake problem as well, but after I got everything back together and the car on the road the problem persisted.
I saw in the Hayne’s manual for the car the parking brake can be adjusted from underneath the armrest. So would an adjustment fix my problem? If loosened would the brake stay down when not in use and still work when I need it? I also saw as part of the procedure the manual has you put the rear end on jack stands. If you are just tightening or loosening a cable why would the back wheels need to be off the ground? Is this absolutely necessary?
Thank you all in advance.
Yes, you need them. You need to be able to feel that there’s no brake friction on the wheel after you adjust it. You have to turn them to do that.
Are the brake cables nice and free? Are you sure there’s no little bits of cereal, french fries or other matter stuck under there?
Disconnect the wheel end of the cable (one side at a time), and make sure they’re not binding somewhere. Methinks you have a tad more work to do. 
Edit: Are the brakes actually rubbing, or does the handle popped up very slightly just bug you? It’s happened to me, so I get it, but I’m just curious.
Good luck,
Chase
The brakes rub slightly, but if I hold down the lever while driving it eventually stays down and isn’t a problem until I accidentally pull it again.
I disconnected the cable at the wheels when I did the brakes and nothing seemed amiss. I doubt that there is anything stuck down in the lever, I don’t have any kids and keep a tidy car, but I’ll check.
Well, you’ll be there, anyway adjusting, so a quick vacuum will be easy. Just a thought, anyway.
This seems to be a common issue I’ve had it in 2 cars, from what I hear the cable is most likely stretched hopefully an adjustment will solve it for both our sales haha
Why would a stretched cable make it engage?
I can see why a stretched cable would make it hard to engage the parking brake, but why would it make it engage on its own?
Because most people can’t fit under the car.
Thread date April , 2011
The hand brake cable adjusting screw on this car is by the hand lever inside the car (under the arm rest, like the OP said). You don’t need to climb under the car to adjust it.
The only other way to adjust the cable is to adjust the brake shoes themselves after you pull the drums.
The spec on my 1998 Civic (which is also a 6th generation Civic, like the 1999 Civic) is that the hand brake should engage in 7-9 clicks. Mine has stretched so much over the years that the screw by the handle is as tight as it can get, so the only way to adjust it is to adjust the rear brakes. I can tell whether the rear brakes need adjusting by how many clicks the parking brake takes to engage.
Having said all that, I’ve never encountered this problem, where the parking brake engages on its own, and the only thing I can think of that might cause this is if there is something stuck under the hand brake lever that is pushing up on it, or maybe there is so much slack in the cable that it pops up when the car vibrates.