March 31, 2003 - Parking Brake Mechanism

Tonight I started out by sanding down and painting some metal trim parts from the interior of the car. That was easy. Then, I got into something that was NOT so easy, changing the parking brake mechanism. This particular unit is one of the vacuum actuated "Auto Parking Brake Release" kind. It is similar to the manual unit except that it has a big vacuum pot on the top of it. The unit that was in the car was, of course, rusted so badly that it wouldn't lock in the applied position. I tried to free it without taking it out of the car but that wasn't happening. Fortunately, I had a perfectly good working unit from my 77 NYB parts car. I then took out the original rusted over unit and installed the perfectly operating unit from the 77.

I decided to take off the remaining lower dash cover, only two bolts and two screws held it on anyway. That allowed much better access to the mechanism. I had to remove the hood release lever, the Hi/Lo beam switch from the floor and the grommet where the parking brake cable goes through the floor. I got the old unit out and the cable disconnected from it and then I installed the "new" unit. To connect the cable I had to pull it out some to get enough length to slip it through the keeper in the mechanism. I decided to disconnect the cable under the car, about under the B pillar. When you pull it loose, it just slipps apart. I got the mechanism all bolted in and hooked up but I didn't replace the other items I had to remove in the process.

Any more 77 parts on this car and it will be a 76 1/2 model year!