Hope that got someone's attention. My 97 ranger has a parking break that pretty much goes to the floor, and doesn't always do the job of locking the wheels (on a hill it could still roll).
To my understanding, there are no adjustments to this, and perhaps after all these years the cables have stretched.
Rather than buying new cables lacking the stretch, is there another way to may this all tighter?
My old VW was great, I could adjust the cables easily. But this is a real pain.
C.
ps. My rear brakes are not worn out and have plenty of years left in them.. just changed last summer.
J.C. Whitney used to sell a little gimmick that would take the slack out of stretched cables. IIRC, it was kind of 'Z' shaped and snapped on to the cable. Don't know if they still carry it, or if maybe AutoZone or Discount auto parts carries them. Good luck! SC Tom
Don't let the clutch wear out and keep it in gear when you park.
My '91 Escort would wear out the parking brake frequently leaving only the clutch to prevent it from rolling. The parking brake on my '90 BII also had difficulty holding the vehicle on a hill and I had to push the pedal as far as it would go to pull the cable enough. My '93 F-150 has no problems, though. I don't know of any other solutions.
There is no separate "parking brake" on about 95% of vehicles;
*especially* a '91 Escort or a '90 BII. The "PB" is nothing more than levers and cables to apply the rear shoes on rear drum brakes. I know there have been various methods used on rear disc brakes.
As for the 5% or so with real parking brakes; it's a separate disc or drum assembly mounted to the driveshaft ( anyone else remember the stench of burnt out ebrakes on deuce'n a halfs on convoy stops ?)
Disc brakes have spoiled folks about using the "self-adjusters" on drum brakes (or the need to have them manually adjusted) . A loose parking brake should be a indication to do either.
For those uninitiated; "self adjusters" work by "ratcheting" when applying the brakes in reverse.Unfortunately; it takes a little extra force on the brakes that isn't applied by some drivers(for whatever reason). That's the reason for the quote marks aound the name.
Sometimes it's just from never having the brakes slammed hard enough in reverse.
Sometimes they get rusty or otherwise stuck; that can often be cured temporarily by getting a little speed up (5-10MPH) and slamming on the brakes . You may have to repeat this a couple of times. Unless something is seriously broken; you can't overdo this. The arm that does the "ratcheting" has to move a certain amount. When the rear shoes are pushed back out to the correct range; said arm can't move far enough to click again. You'd be amazed at how much "pedal rise" you can get out of this. I've seen both the parking brake and the regular brake pedal go from "on the floor" to almost new position with 4 "backup 'n mash it"s
If the above doesn't work; your rear drum brakes *don't* have self adjusters or they are frozen/busted. This calls for a manual brake adjustment. It's not a hard job; but it could get complicated if there are other problems . RTFM or a Haynes or Clymer book.
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