[DeTomaso] Parking brake question

[tmshinro at aol.com]

 Well we finally got some warm weather here in Iowa (mid 60s) so I decided to spend the day in the garage.   One of the things that has never worked on my Pantera was the parking brake.   When I rebuilt the rear calipers years ago, I think I deduced my problem being that the "teeth" on the post of the brake piston were worn and would not engage the ribs that produce the ratcheting effect to compensate for pad wear.   I bought a used pair of rear calipers several years ago that were advertised as having a working parking brake, but I haven't tore into them yet (definitely on the list for this summer).   The reason that I've gone for 24 years without a working parking brake is that there aren't a lot of hills here in the flatlands but I recently moved into a house that has a steep inclined driveway and it would be nice to be able to use the parking brake instead of turning off the car and putting a 2x4 behind the tire.  

I was looking at the parking brake linkage and noticed that when I set the parking brake, the ends of the cables that pull the levers on the back of the calipers don't hardly move off of their stops.   I appears to me that the end of the cable with the metal end that pulls on the clevis attached to the lever only has about 1/4 inch to move before it hits the end of the barrel of the adjusting bolt.  Once the end of the cable hits the adjusting barrel, the handle won't go up any further.   

The adjusting bolt was screwed all the way into the bracket, so I tried backing off the adjustment thinking that I would expose more cable to allow more travel.  All that happened is that moving the adjustment back just pulled the brake lever more.   Unfortunately, moving the adjustment all the way out, which resulted in the brake lever moving a considerable distance (maybe 35 degrees), did not cause the wheels to lock up.  One side produced near lock up (by hand), but the other side had only slight resistance.   My brake pads are only about 1/4 worn.  And, yes, the pistons are rotated into the locked position.

My question is this; with a properly working piston ratchet, is 1/4 of cable travel all this is needed to engage the parking brake?   It almost looks like the adjusting barrel is too long.    

Unfortunately there are no local Panteras to reference how the system works, so I once again I'm tapping the brain trust.

Thanks,
Tom 
#5186