E-brake

[cw4rdmn]

Anyone know why my emergency brake is really hard to press down? It's so hard you can't get it to click and lock into place.

[fordman]

frozen cable or a bad cable maybe.

[cw4rdmn]

What cable should i look at. because it has never done this before

[fordman]

all o fthem really. what you could do is to disconnect the front cable from the two rear ones. and then push the foot pedal. and see what happens. if the pedal works then it is one of the rear cables. if it doesn't work it is the front cable. if it is a back cable you should be able to pull on them with pliers from under the truck. if they dotn move at all that could be the bed one. another way is to remove the rear brake drums one at a time and see if the cable will move with the lever in the drum.

[cw4rdmn]

Well i messed around with the star wheel adjustment things inside the rear drums, and now it locks and works, but its really tight. really tight

[knightfire83]

You can loosen up the parking brake cables, sounds like they are adjusted to tight. This way you will have more slack in the lines and the parking brake pedal will travel further when you engage them.


The adjustment is at "2A796 nut"



The star wheel adjuster is to adjust the brake shoe clearance in the drums. If you loosened this up, chances are you have more (regular)brake pedal travel and less brakes in the rear.

The proper adjustment for the star wheels is to have the adjuster out far enough that when you spin the drum the brake shoes barely drag on it. If adjusted properly, you can hear the shoes barely rubbing on the drum when you spin it by hand.

Be sure to test out your regular brakes and parking brakes after all your adjustments, to make sure they are working correctly.