Parking brake pedal refurb.

[A-man930]

Any idea where I can get the longer return spring that attaches where the cable connects to the pawl? Mine has gone awol and I cannot find a part number in the parts book. 

 

I'd take a good long look at a hardware store and/or local old-school parts house.  No advice aside from that.  Good luck!

[A-man930]

 

Great writeup, thanks!

 

Over the years I've broken several parking brake release cables. They seem to fray at the far end, it doesn't look like there are any sharp edges, I think just repeated use causes them to fail.

 

I've started pressing down on the pedal before pulling the release. When I don't do this, there is quite a bit more  force required to release the parking brake. When I press down on the pedal, the release pulls very very easily.

 

I'm guessing it'll be hard to get replacements for the release cable, so I'm hoping this one will last a while!

 

Gene

 

 

I have the same problem on mine and I do the same thing (relieve the tension with the pedal) before I pull the release.  The local dealer said the cable isn't available.  

[87MJTIM]

On 10/17/2015 at 2:35 PM, cruiser54 said:

And?

 

All I did was change the little spring to fix mine.......

 

 

I just replaced the spring on mine.  Now the pedal doesn't bounce back when I push it down.  

[cruiser54]

20 hours ago, 87MJTIM said:

 

I just replaced the spring on mine.  Now the pedal doesn't bounce back when I push it down.  

You know what?

 

That's probably all I needed to do. 

[A-man930]

Not ashamed to admit that I like agamble's approach better than mine.

 

 

[gogmorgo]

Trying to get mine working, got a shipper coming to move it and they demanded a functioning parking brake. Mine wouldn’t stay down reliably, like most.
I pulled the parking brake pedal but you wouldn’t necessarily have to just to do what I did, I don’t think.
First thing I used a clamp to squeeze the assembly together. This eliminated most of the wiggle in the pedal, but on its own wasn’t enough to stop it releasing. But while I had it clamped, I took the opportunity to stick a couple circlips in under the head of the rivet to take up some of the slack. You’d be able to tap them into place with the assembly installed.

This was a huge improvement but still not perfect. 
 

The next thing I did was replace the pawl spring with a much burlier one. 

I’m pretty sure you should be able to get the spring in there with the assembly in place with a little determination. This spring came out of a set of springs, I just cut down one of the heavier ones in the kit. this was a MASSIVE improvement. I can’t wiggle the pedal loose anymore, no matter how much wiggling and in which direction I wiggle. Don’t know whether the spring on its own would’ve solved the problem, but it would be worth trying. 
 

Now I’ll put the thing back into the truck and find out my cables are straight up seized, just watch. 

[A-man930]

On 11/5/2022 at 3:28 PM, gogmorgo said:

Now I’ll put the thing back into the truck and find out my cables are straight up seized, just watch. 

[gogmorgo]

2 hours ago, A-man930 said:

By some miracle everything worked. I’m pretty well at the end of the cable adjustment so new cables are in the future anyhow, but it holds hard enough in both directions to stall the engine, so it’ll work for the next week. 

[cruiser54]

excellent!!

 

FWIW, after refurbishing mine, I really feel like the stronger spring had the most effect.  

[Eagle_SX4]

Just refurbished my parking brake mechanism. Thought I would share a few things I did differently. First off I did not want to cut up the mechanism. There was some slop left to right in both the pedal pivot and the release pawl. So I tried "tightening" the rivets. I used a center punch to flare out the rivet so it would grab again.

Put something on the back side of the rivet so that it won't bend the whole mechanism. Worked really well. Just make sure you don't go to much or you will end up having to drive a screwdriver down the inside trying to free it up again (made that mistake). Make sure both the release pawl and pedal teeth line up.

After I got everything operating smoothly with very little slop left to right. I found a spring to replace the soft factory spring. I found a #120 extension spring at the hardware store that works great. The rubber stop had fallen to pieces so I used a 5/8 heater as a replacement.

I bent up the stop plate on the pedal and slid it over that. A tight fit but it won't fall off.

[Pete M]

thanks!