Parking brake ratchet stopped working

[petebryan]

Hi all
I'm hoping one of you helpful people recognise these symptons and can point me in the right direction.

My 1970 Cuda's parking brake (which has been perfect up till now) has suddenly broken, and by that I mean there's no ratchet sounds as the pedal is pushed down (and the pedal comes straight back up), and the release lever feels almost floppy like it's not attached to anything at the far end, or whatever it is attached to has come away.

The service manual hasn't given me any clues.

Any ideas?

Cheers in advance!
Pete

[Dave999]

no clue
but id suggest for the ratchet to "ratchet" it needs to be loaded with some resistance
I'm guessing broken spring somewhere or disconnected linkage.
or your rear brake shoes have worn so far that the hand brake strut has become dislodged in the drum or the system was out of adjustment and cable end (like a clevis with a welded in pin on my car), has come off its hook.
if activating the brake and holding it stops the car using both rear wheels, this isn't the problem. if activating the brake and it doesn't stop the car or it just causes 1 wheel to lock, then maybe it is. i,e the problem is between the adjuster saddle under the car in the middle of the drivers side and the brake shoe the cables from there act on. i.e disconnected here no tension in the system so no ratcheting

chassis manual or service manuals here might help, these are the chrysler dealer manuals rather than the aftermarket US equivalent of Haynes

https://mymopar.com/service-manuals/

https://mymopar.com/parts-manuals/

if you pair a manual with the parts book and get adept at cross referencing you can usually work out whats going on. both involve diagrams and not necessarily the same.
i.e does my "Thing" have all the parts listed in the group for that thing and do they look to be installed in the right place 1970 challenger books might be useful as well

few ideas...probably wrong but you never know

Dave

[petebryan]

Many thanks again Dave for your thoughts, and in particular re looking at the parts catalogue to see what should be where.

I've got (mostly) to the bottom of this now, so for anyone who has the same experience:

The main issue turned out to be the parking (or emergency) brake release lever, which has a long spring on the release lever shaft. The spring is held in place by a bushing, which sits within a hole in a bracket. The bushing had worn and pulled through the bracket, allowing the spring to come through the bracket too, resulting in no tension at all on the spring, and the release lever flopping around.

Without the spring in place, the release lever was very floppy, and had mis-directed me to think there was a problem with the ratchet on the emergency brake pedal - which there wasn't. The ratchet is fine - my mistake.

I've copied other people's fixes and used a "nylon shoulder washer" as the original bushing is no longer available. I got as close a size as possible and filed it down a bit to fit it into the hole in the aforementioned bracket. This is a bit of a workaround but works well. Message me if you need exact sizes etc.

The floppinesss of the release lever was also affected by a missing "tang" (bent metal tab) on the brake unit. This is a common fault, but fortunately doesn't render it inoperable, but just allows more travel in the release lever than should be the case.

[I also suspect there may be a broken return spring within the brake mech, but didn't get the whole unit out so can't tell. Again thats a common fault, and may be a further cause of the floppiness.]

It works fine again now though with the release lever bushing replaced with the "nylon shoulder washer".