Mopar Muscle Association UK

Hi lads,
Took the duster for its MOT today,everything fine,until car was put on rolling road to check brakes,passenger side rear brakes working fine,drivers side no reading on gauge,also parking brake not working on drivers side.
Got car home and checked,took the drum off and it would seem that the shoes were not expanding to the drum,adjusted brake shoes until the drum would just fit over,and put the wheel back on.
Put the car into 1st whilst on jacks and applied brakes,whilst handbrake applied,brake was depressed and acceleator was applied,no parking brake what so ever.
car was backhalved at hausers,they attached parking brake mechanism to their chassis rail,when the parking brake is applied the passenger side cable moves but driver side does not,cable adjuster is tightened to the maximum and cannot be adjusted any more.
On inspection wheel cylinder has no leaks.
Any help greatly appreiceated.

Sounds like one cable is too long or siezed from your description.
Is it worth you posting some pictures?

it does sound like an adjustment or cable problem, maybe the cable mounting points on the frame are incorrect. if you can find an old fasioned car shop they might have one of the devices we used to use on streched cables (i just had a look and havnt got one) other than that make a new mount on the frame a bit furter up to tension the cable more.

After spending all afternoon trying to get the drivers side parking brake system to work, i'm at a loss!
I've noticed that the lengths of cable are different to each side of the car. The length of cable to the side of the car that does not work is approx an inch longer and when I apply the parking brake there's only slight movement, does anyone know how much movement there should be?
Does this cable activate the parking brake lever, forcing the brake shoes against the drum?
Cheers

cable runs through bowden tubes across axle

they hook on to a lever in the brake drum that pulls on a shoe in each

the other end has nipples that fit into a saddle on an adjustable length rod that attaches to the parking brake handle, this saddle can be at any angle in order to take up peculiarities in different brands cable length

for this to work correctly the cable outers (Bowden tubes) need to be clamped onto the axle and the ends of the tubes must hit a positive stop at the back of the brake drum. i.e the whole lot works like brakes on a bike and depends on the outers being fixed at a specific distance from where the lever is that needs to be pulled and not collapsing

to get an inch excess

either the outer is collapsing

or it is not clamped or it is pulling into and through the drum backing plate

it should have a metal end on it.

the outer tubes are spiral wound spring type steel with a plastic sheath with a metal cable guide/end cap on each end. the plastic can look good but the inner completely corroded away. i.e you can't easily tell if they have collapsed without taking one off and giving it a stretch.

mind if ya brakes don't work from the peddle pressure either.....this may not be your issue

Dave