imbodie

Ok, in the spirit of DTR (and saving a ton of $$$) I decided to do my own brakes. Everything came off easy enough and I found a broken cable (not sure it's exact purpose) on the passenger side brake assembly.
I replaced all hardware (springs, star adjustment, cables) with kit's from Autozone. Fought with the springs putting them backtogether (hey it was my first time doing this) but now I've got a couple of questions.

What was the cable thing that was broken? emergency brake related maybe?
Now that it's all back together, everything looking to be properly placed with refernce to my Haynes manual and several digital photos that I took on my own. I have two issues.

1: my brakes are spongy, but they do work
and
2: my emergency brakes hold NOTHING. I did try adjusting the star wheel but it didn't seem to make much difference ( I did it the right way, drivers side down, passenger side up).

I'm sure issue one is because I did not bleed the brake system and I plan on doing that wednesday, but why are my emergency brakes not working ?? that was the main reason I started this whole deal.

I had actually paid a shop to adjust my brakes for me two months ago and they are who had me CONVINCED to do a brake job because the brakes were SHOT.... I actually had good pad left, the only thing I found wrong was the broken cable...

Ok Opinions anyone?

Thanks,
Tim

jrs_dodge_diesel

The star wheel adjusts the wheel cylinder for the main hydraulic brakes, not the parking(emergency) brake.

The parking brake system must be completely independent of the hydraulic brake system, which is why it's cable operated. The cable is supposed to pull the shoes against the drum and keep the truck still.

I feel safe to say that your problem lies with your broken cable. Get that fixed and you'll likely get your parking brake back.

imbodie

I replaced ALL the springs and cables on both sides of the rear wheel brake system.

Looks like I'll be jacking it back up and backing off both star's then because I was adjusting them trying to correct for E-brake.

What are all the options for adjusting the E-brake? just the cable adjustments front of the left rear wheel???

Thanks,
Tim

gorms

For adjusting the starwheel, really need to do it with the wheels off the ground and tighten them up until you get just a bit of drag. That could help your parking brake situation, even though the parking brake is "separate" from the hydraulic wheel cylinder, it's still respective to how far away the pad is from the drum. Is the soft pedal any different then the way it was before? Did you open any brake lines while doing the pads?

You're not "supposed" to adjust that line on the drivers side, if you ultimately have to then you need new parking brake cables, basically from the pedal back if you've already replaced the rear cables. You can try to tighten up the line through that adjuster, but a new cable assembly is the right fix. Try applying the parking brake, then crawl under the truck to see if there is any slack in the cable. If there is, tighten it up (after properly adjusting the shoes of course.). Good luck.

mini14

the star wheels are adjusted the same direction on both sides. those wheel cylinders r cheap i would have replaced them too. Watch your fluid resevoir to c if u have a leak. I went 90k on my first set of rear shoes. And I do adjust them every spring.

imbodie

THANKYOU!!!!!!!

Had it in my head that because they were reversed that the adjustment would be oposite....

The star wheel brake adjustment fixed all my issues, once the pad's were appropriately adjusted the emergency brake magicaly worked.

Mine both adjust up, the only problem I had was I over adjusted the passenger side and I couldn't find the right SPOT to push the little plate so I could back the adjustment off some.... GOT IT though.

THANK YOU ALL, DTR ROCKS

imbodie

don't know what is wrong but my signature isn't displaying??
oh well...
Thanks again

Midnite

The signature only displays on your first post in a thread, and then it's omitted on other posts in that thread. You'll notice that it's there on your initial post.

imbodie

This must be something new, it used to ALWAYS show your sig...
I guess 200+ extra characters multiplied by the number of posters was zapping bandwidth or storage or.... just cluttering screens up...
-Tim

Hodge

Good job on figuring things out- that is part of the fun, once you have solved the issues. You will never forget, and you know how your back brakes work now.
In the future, consider replacing the wheel cylinders, too. They are cheap, and you will know that everything is new. You can also upgrade to larger cylinders (there are tons of posts about them), which will give you more stopping power for very little investment.

jrs_dodge_diesel

Glad you got it fixed.

On the signatures, they only show up in your first post in a thread, and only in the first post. It's been this way for a while. Both of your assumptions are correct, it helps reduce bandwidth and not cluttering the screen.