I was wondering what you all thought about restoring, replacing or just totally doing away with the whole system emergency brake system?
Unless damaged, they can be cleaned, media blasted, lubed & treated w/ Boeshield.
Most don’t know that the emergency brake system does 2 things:
-
Just that “a emergency brake” or a safety brake ( to hold car in place: manual transmission)
-
The proper tension is needed to allow the rear drum brakes to “self- adjust” as the shoes & drums wear.
No way I would remove the system, in fact if everybody would check their’s we all would be better & safer!
Cougar Bill,
Good to know! Thanks
I take it you’ve never driven a stick shift in hilly areas, eh? That brake is quite useful to keep you from rolling back when stuck uphill at a traffic light.
Absolutely maintain your park brake system. I’d hate to have to stop a car with one, but it’s better than nothing, which is what you’d have if you need it and it’s not there.
I have a moderately steep driveway and I use my park brake whenever I park on it. The slope is steep enough that the parking pawl has a noticeable load on it when I shift out of Park. I don’t like the stress that disengaging a loaded park pawl puts on the shifter, linkage, and bushings.
Call me lazy but I don’t like finding and replacing 50 year old plastic bits.
Agree don’t ditch the park brake, you should be able to clean everything up and get it functional again without a whole lot of effort.
Even if you end up doing a disc brake swap for the rear you can get discs with park brake setups. Of course they are more money but If it’s something you plan to drive on the street it’s worth it.
Thanks everyone. I purchased both rear cables and a front cable. Looks like the previous owner ditched all of the rest of the attaching parts. Does anybody have some good pics of the setup and anybody have any extra parts you want to sell? Also does the 68 use an intermediate cable too?
Same cables as a Mustang of the same year - three, and they are the same length as Mustang. The U - piece that connects the floor pan pivot is different than Mustang. So is the clip that connects the two side cables to each other. WCCC has everything in stock.
Thanks Royce! Does the passenger side cable run up to the front and then curve back and attach to the short driverside cable?
Correct. The shop manual is full of useful things about this and many other items.
Royce, the shop manual usually is, however the illustrations for the setup wasn’t the best. I find that getting advise from those that have been there, done that is invaluable. That’s why I love this site!
Replace the cables if possible. I just cooked a set of rear brakes when one of the fingers on the cable end fatigued and caused the brakes to bind while I was doing 100km on the freeway. Took me a while to figure out where the smoke was coming from when I got to the off ramp about 20kms later.
Got so hot the springs lost their tension and linings fell off shoes