Finally! A working P-brake.
Both my son's 03 DM Dually and my 04 Sierra have had little or no effective parking brakes for as long as we've had them. Every year, for the annual state inspection, we'd get them to work just enough to get a sticker, and then suffer through without a working P-brake till next year.
Well, I've known for a long time that the dang thing couldn't be expected to work as GM built I, since the left/driver's side outer cable wasn't anchored anywhere to begin with. So, a couple of weeks ago, I got serious about doing something about it. The solution was quite simple. I just pulled the front inner cable back, and held it with vice-grips under the driver's seat, pulled both rear inner cables forward and dis-connected the nipple-clip ahead of where the two inner cables share a clip connecting them to the single cable coming from the pedal, took the outer cable end from the driver's side (with that clip removed), put a 1/2" flat washer over it, and fed it through the un-used hole in the bracket that anchors the right-side cable. There! the left-side outer cable is now anchored. Put a nice, heavy, solid pulley, with bridle, in a loop made by joining the two inner cables, then used some 1/8" SS cable, doubled, to go in the space left by the removal of the piece from the pedal. I used crimp-on aluminum clamps and loop liners to join a heavy turn-buckle up there where I removed the in-line nipple, ran the doubled SS line through a piece of 1/2" pex pipe, which is inside a piece of 3/4" pex, and jammed them through the holes in the bracket that the single, now gone, cable went through before. Tightened and adjusted everything, lubed it, added a coil spring to dampen the pulley from bouncing, and now? I have a P-brake!
Remember when it seemed that most P-brakes had a balancing yoke and adjustment somewhere in the system? And, if you didn't let them rust all up, and kept them adjusted, they'd actually work. Now, I have that capability. Yup, it looks like a farmer's been working under my truck, but I ain't ashamed that I fixed something that GM made that couldn't possibly work with any kind of consistency or power the way they designed it.
Oh, I go up, tomorrow, and get the Old Gal aligned and inspected, and when they ask me to put it in gear and demo the P-brake ----- I don't have to worry that the thing will just roll ahead.
DW
2008 Jaco Seneca 35' motor home (Kodiak 5500 chassis). Pulling 18' Wells Cargo enclosed trailer, with 2016 Miata in it.
Reply With Quote
