Loss of e-brake after driving on rough roads

[mibars]

Hi,
After a drive through beautiful, but very uneven roads of our Mazury lake District I lost my e-brake. At one moment along various other squeaks and rattles I believe I've heard something bounce under the car, like a rock or a bolt, later on when parked I had zero parking brake. There is slack in cable, but I can't see anything detached. Cable still is attached to the pedal and to both drums, I can pull botl left and right cable and hear stuff move inside drums, that cable splitting contraption is still there. Before that I believe I had e-brake in both wheels, was it possible that something rattled away in both drums at same time?

Or is there anything that could have fallen off that would yield such symptom?

 

[ChuckN]

So, in remembering my own, I know it’s a maze of hooks that slot into the frame and guide the cables while keeping some semblance of tension on them. It’s my thought that there was a little slack in your system, allowing one to bounce or rattle out of the frame, and that would explain why you see slack now and why your e-brake now does nothing.

If you have a manual, it would probably show you the hooks and the cable routing. But the odds of something suddenly happening to both rear drums are slim to none.

 

[ChuckN]

A quick search revealed this, should get you some kind of confirmation.

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[mibars]

My system looks different, it goes from e-brake pedal downwards and turns back along left frame rail.

Thank you for the idea, just looked at the LMC Truck page and they have a schematic that sort of looks like my assembly.

https://www.lmctruck.com/mechanical/brakes/csb-1984-91-parking-brake-cables

I'll study it at home and see what's missing. I suspect that slack would appear in whole system if there was nothing to hold the cable in place in area marked with #4:

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[mibars]

I found out that my cable adjustment nut (6) was all the way out... I have no other idea that it has simply vibrated loose on the roads that felt like driving on cobblestone (some of them were probably cobblestone with a thin layer of weathered asphalt)

 

[mibars]

Something is still wrong. The e-brake could barely hold the Burb in drive and I had to floor it, never had to engage it that hard before. Adjusting it further made it even stiffer.

I found an old video that I recorded and I see that the adjustment nut was almost all the way out before, so something else must have been affected by all that shaking.
Looks like it is not a common issue as I though so I'll investigate, my only other idea is that something inside one of the drums has dislodged.

 

[Grit dog]

The fact that your e brake adjuster vibrated loose all on its own is actually great news. 98.9% of them are rusted tight!

 

[mibars]

It actually didn't, it was all the way loose. I checked some old footage where I got a shot of that splitter/adjuster and the nut was already at the end of the rod. I'll see inside drums in some spare time to check what happened there.

 

[ChuckN]

The fact that your e brake adjuster vibrated loose all on its own is actually great news. 98.9% of them are rusted tight!

You ain’t joking! In Michigan, unless you used them EVERY DAY it was common practice to never ever touch them because good luck after that.

 

[Juniork30]

I would remove the drum and check inside probably broke something

 

[Grit dog]

You ain’t joking! In Michigan, unless you used them EVERY DAY it was common practice to never ever touch them because good luck after that.

I’m still afraid to push an e brake and haven’t lived in the salt belt for 30 years!

 

[mibars]

Finally got a moment to go through rear brakes. My driver side drum is missing a C-clip that holds the parking brake lever pin in place. It has disassembled itself without it.

Found the washer, but C-clip is gone. Can somebody help me with identifying what size of a C-clip is used there? I guess it's imperial size so my measurements in mm are not very helpful. Passenger side shown below with a C-clip in question.

(BTW: drum retainer springs are on wrong sides below, I've corrected it to yellow on the side with adjuster, green on the side with just the shoe)

For now I've pressed out the pin and replaced it with 10 mm bolt with lock nuts and loctite to keep it in place. e-brake is back to full power on both wheels.

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