[DeTomaso] Parking brake question

[doug351c]

Something is definitely wrong.  The travel is closer to 1" or so if I
remember correctly.  Take the cable off the calipers and work their levers
with a pliers.  You may find that they'll ratchet to a position farther away
from the cable end and then work correctly after you adjust the parking
brake cable to this new position.

Doug Braun
blue 73L #5505

-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com
[mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com]On Behalf Of tmshinro at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 4:31 PM
To: detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: [DeTomaso] Parking brake question



 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




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