Parking Brake

[jmontou]

For the past several weeks I have been tinkering on an 84 full size bronco that I bought for my son. Just one of the many things broke or missing was the emergency brake cables to the rear drums. This weekend we installed new cables purchased from LMC and now I am curious of how to properly adjust the parking brake. My Haynes manual does not recommend or explain this procedure. It doesn't appear that difficult, however, I am reluctant to try this without some suggestions.

 

[Yardape]

The adjustment nut is under the drivers side door, I'm sure you know the one I mean from installing the new cable. Tighten that until all the slack is gone but not so much that it is applying the brakes. Apply the e-brake to see where it grabs, adjust the nut accordingly. When you are finished one thing I like to do is jack up the rear of the truck, appy the e-brake, try and turn the wheels by hand they should be solid, then release the brakes and turn them by hand again to make sure they released properly.

 

[jmontou]

Thanks Yardape, when I installed the new cables, I noticed the nut was all the way out and a stiff wire just in front of the adjusting mechanism was pulled through and bent to take up slack. Well, I had to straighten the stiff wire to what looked like a factory bend so I could get the new cables attached. The adjusting ***** is now all the way in and the brakes are not grabbing. I guess I need to bend the stiff wire to pull the slack out and maybe use the nut also. I think I can make the adjustments, I was just concerned about why the Haynes manual said special gauges had to be used.