‘46 Ford parking brake problem

[Jsmed]

I have recently installed ‘46 Ford hydraulic brakes on my ‘31 Model A Ford Tudor. Testing of the hydraulics indicates the brakes, with a few minor adjustments, work as they should. Here is where the problem with the parking brake starts. In preparation for installing the PB cable (drum removed) I worked the cable arm by hand to demonstrate the Operation of the PB Mechanism. I moved the arm as far as it would go until it contacted the sheet metal shroud( this may be a grease shield) with no brake operation evident. For this to work the arm must travel far enough to make the brake arm integral protrusion, at the backing plate side of the arm, contact the bottom of the slot located in cross link of the mechanism. As it turns out the arm protrusion fell about 3/16 Inch short of making contact preventing the shoes from expanding. I personally replaced only the shoes and cylinders and all other parts came from the donor car. ANY IDEAS ? I should add that I got the PB’s to work by simply altering the cross link member to reduce the cross link slot depth as mentioned above. I built up the slot depth by about 5/16 inch with weld and ground the surface smooth. As a check I installed the wheel which turned free and had my wife pull brake lever and the wheel was tight immediately.

[Kurt in NJ]

What oversize are the drums, I took apart newly done brakes that had the drums turned.187 oversized that prevented parking brake operation-----on a different make, that has similar lever system and fixed anchoring

[KGS]

Are you using a repop parking brake cable? The return spring on each side is about twice a long as needed and compresses completely before the shoe makes contact. I just wen through this on a '39 and had to cut the spring down to about 5 inches.
Ken

[51woodie]

The long spring problem happened to me as well. Had to cut some off the get enough travel on the park brake arm that levers the shoes apart. I can’t remember how much I cut off.

[mhsprecher]

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I am having a similar problem with the parking brake on my 45 truck. I started a new thread to find a solution to my problem and came across this as I continued to search for a solution.