Garbage Mechanic and rear brake shoes.

[Selahdoor]

From an old thread...

Another problem affecting all of us likely 1980 to 1997 is that all of the brake shoe cores in circulation for all new and most reman shoes are made incorrectly in the parking brake actuator area. In the area at the top of the shoe where the parking brake actuator wedges the brake shoes apart to force them against the drum there is metal missing due to sloppy mfg. that allows the actuator to completely miss one shoe and nearly miss the other. After hunting all over hell for shoes that were made correctly, I finally grabbed the MIG and built up the shoes to match the originals in that area. A little grinding and filing and presto better than new park brake! Ran into this 3 times now.

GM... I hope you see this.And anyone else with some answers to a couple questions.

My shop said they couldn't get the parking brake to work.

It sounded like they couldn't get enough cable. I will find out tomorrow what the exact problem was.

Point is... I suspect they ran into THIS problem!!!

Their solution was to just leave the PB disconnected at the wheels.


Questions...

When the above problem is the case, and the cable IS connected at the rear wheels... what happens?

I need to know what happens when you push the pedal, so I can be better informed, when I talk to them tomorrow.


Another question to anyone... Would this, or leaving the PB cable disconnected at the rear wheels, cause the brake light to come on and off intermittently?


Last, would this, or leaving the cables disconnected at the rear wheels... cause the brakes to always always be just a little bit "ON"? As in, always have to have your foot on the gas to keep moving forward. Let yout foot off the skinny pedal, even at 70MPH, and going downhill, and the truck immediately slows as if the brakes are very slightly applied...

 

[nostrokes]

I've never heard of this problem, but I would think if there was material missing your parking brake would never engage.

For the light, how is the parking brake pedal? Is it loose and slightly bouncing around or is it tight to the dash? Some of the switches for the light can be sensitive and any movement will cause them to come on.

For the brakes being always a little bit on, the adjustment is probably too tight. The adjuster needs to be backed off a bit.

I don't know anything about the shop that worked on it, and I don't want to bash them since I don't know them, but it sounds like they missed a few basic mechanics points..

 

[Rusgo]

My parking brake is doing this right now. Started after I did a complete brake job. Every month or so it catches once and works great, but most of the time it just a wet noodle.

I've changed hundreds of shoes and never had the problem.

Super duty axles to the rescue.

Leaving them disconnected seems more like an excuse for some other **** up though.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

[u2slow]

Where are they too short?

My pet-peeve is the OE cable routing. It does a hard bend to go under spring hanger. Get it out from there... run the cable straighter... you'll have a much better-working parking brake.


EDIT: I forget if Ford uses different length cables for 2wd and 4x4 to account for the leaf spring block. Makes a big difference on a 1stgen Dodge... either no block, or a 6" one.

 

[Garbage_Mechan]

YES! I have done that on the 91 and 96, on the 96 I built a bracket to lower the frame mounting bracket so both cables above and below the spring hangar make more sense. I insist on the parking brake sliding the tires at 15 mph since I off road and live in the hills, not to mention the backup in case of brake failure.

 

[typ4]

I posted a statement like this many years ago I used to have pictures posted somewhere but they're not around anymore. It's very simple the ears that sit on the top anchor are too short because they're buying shoe blanks from China or wherever or they get wore off and they surface them which I doubt , then the actuator that gets pulled on by the arm doesn't hit the shoe until the bottom end of the arm is hitting the spring which is coil bound and stops the cable