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Parking Brake Assembly - How to adust self-adjuster?


OskarBlue

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Location
Colorado
Vehicle Year
1999
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
3.0 V6
Transmission
Manual
The parking brake on my 99 Ranger has never worked. Finally had the time to delve into it, and man were there all sorts of issues...

The parking brake strut was missing on one side (had to order from ebay), and the rear cables were rusted and seized. After replacing all the hardware in the drum brakes, getting the missing strut, and replacing the seized rear cables, I think I'm finally going to have a working parking brake. Not so.

With everything back together, I can engage the parking brake successfully, but pulling the release lever won't release all the slack in the cable and my shoes won't retract. I can manually grab the cable, and pull out another ~1.5" of slack. As soon as I let go of the cable, the assembly pulls that slack back in.

After inspecting the assembly, I found a smaller cog underneath the pedal. Some research seems to indicate that this is how the assembly self adjusts, and this cog helps pull in a little extra slack if the cables stretch. It seems like mine has self-adjusted to pull in as much slack as possible from the old cables. Now that all cables are working properly, I don't need it to pull in this much slack. How do I "reset" the self adjuster?

I didn't need to put a pin in the assembly to release the tension like my Haynes book recommends because my cables were shot, so there was already slack in the system. Now, trying to figure out this issue, I tried to put the pin in, but can't get it to go into the hole on the other side even with all the slack pulled. If I could pull just a little bit more, it would rotate the cog enough to have room to put the pin all the way through, but there's no slack left to pull.

I'm about to take the entire assembly out to see if I can figure out how it works. Is anyone familiar with the mechanisms of the assembly or had this problem before? Is it possible this cog has gotten stuck beyond the far end of its rotation?
 


Denisefwd93

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Location
South East PA
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Ford
Engine Type
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4.0
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2WD / 4WD
4WD
Total Lift
stock, may get leveling springs in front "somday"
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The parking brake on my 99 Ranger has never worked. Finally had the time to delve into it, and man were there all sorts of issues...

The parking brake strut was missing on one side (had to order from ebay), and the rear cables were rusted and seized. After replacing all the hardware in the drum brakes, getting the missing strut, and replacing the seized rear cables, I think I'm finally going to have a working parking brake. Not so.

With everything back together, I can engage the parking brake successfully, but pulling the release lever won't release all the slack in the cable and my shoes won't retract. I can manually grab the cable, and pull out another ~1.5" of slack. As soon as I let go of the cable, the assembly pulls that slack back in.

After inspecting the assembly, I found a smaller cog underneath the pedal. Some research seems to indicate that this is how the assembly self adjusts, and this cog helps pull in a little extra slack if the cables stretch. It seems like mine has self-adjusted to pull in as much slack as possible from the old cables. Now that all cables are working properly, I don't need it to pull in this much slack. How do I "reset" the self adjuster?

I didn't need to put a pin in the assembly to release the tension like my Haynes book recommends because my cables were shot, so there was already slack in the system. Now, trying to figure out this issue, I tried to put the pin in, but can't get it to go into the hole on the other side even with all the slack pulled. If I could pull just a little bit more, it would rotate the cog enough to have room to put the pin all the way through, but there's no slack left to pull.

I'm about to take the entire assembly out to see if I can figure out how it works. Is anyone familiar with the mechanisms of the assembly or had this problem before? Is it possible this cog has gotten stuck beyond the far end of its rotation?
Do you have the spring that is located where the three cables come together just over top the driver side wheel? Most of us have had to use stronger Springs there
 

OskarBlue

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Colorado
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1999
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Ford
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3.0 V6
Transmission
Manual
The junction at the driver's side rear? It doesn't look like there's a spring there.
 

Denisefwd93

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Messages
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Location
South East PA
Vehicle Year
1994
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Type
4.0 V6
Engine Size
4.0
Transmission
Manual
2WD / 4WD
4WD
Total Lift
stock, may get leveling springs in front "somday"
Tire Size
235
It's getting harder and harder to find pictures, this is pretty close, I don't know how much they changed over the years but without the spring...
 

AdirondackRanger

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88
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ford
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2.9
Transmission
Automatic
My credo
I brake for leaves that could be frogs
did you replace the springs that go around the end of the cables inside the drums?
 

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