How-To: Replace rear parking brake cables

Hello.

I rebuilt my rear brakes from the backing plate out and during the process learned the hard way how to replace the rear parking brake cables.

It was not the most difficult job I've ever done on the truck, but it was among the most annoying.

My factory originals (250k+ miles) seized inside the fitting that attaches the cable to the outside (inboard facing) of the backing plate.

BEFORE STARTING THIS JOB - a few days in advance, start hitting all the bolts that hold the brackets for the parking brake cables to your frame. Start at each drum and follow it back along the frame, getting the top and bottom of each bolt with PB Blaster or your penetrating lubricant of choice. Do this once or twice a day, ESPECIALLY if you live in a salt state. The passenger's side isn't too bad, but the driver's side has one right up by the fuel tank on top of the frame rail. Unless you drop the fuel tank, you'll only be able to reach it with a box wrench and do about a 1/64th turn at a time. If your spray can doesn't have a straw, you'll want to get one that does - you can reach around the other side of the frame, find the bolt head with your fingers, and guide the straw that way.

Now, we'll assume you've already got your drums stripped. The cable end is held to the drum by two bolts with 10mm heads. The heads are inside the drum. I broke mine off on the passenger side by breathing on them. Luckily, they thread into the outside fitting, so I was able to just punch them out of the drums, and happened to have two perfectly sized bolts in the bolt bucket. They are M6x1.0x20mm. An odd size. Longer is fine. Use Never seize when you put them in.



Now that the rear end is disconnected, let's get at the front. It's connected to the parking brake adjuster inside the center console. Don't be scared of taking out the console - it's super easy. Squeeze tabs, two easy to reach Phillips, and two easy to reach 10mm bolt heads. Find a YouTube video, there are a million of them.



To give yourself room to get it unhooked from the front of the parking brake cable, unscrew the tensioner all the way, using a 10mm and a 12mm wrench. The tensioner adjustment uses a barrel nut (10mm) and a lock nut (12mm).

From here, if you have good dexterity and some bent needlenose pliers, you can reach in and pull out the clip that holds the head of the cable into the brackets bolted to the floorpan of the truck.



Be sure to drop it down way into the guts of your center console so you have to take the whole thing out anyway, instead of doing surgery through the shifter trim piece.

Once the clip is out, you can get the head of the cable out of the bracket by pushing it towards the rear of the truck.

Now go back to the rear fitting. In theory, this rear fitting slides right out of the rearmost, large guide bracket. Mine was a little bent up, and the fitting didn't quite want to make it through, so I just cut it off with some bolt cutters.



Then I went back to the front of the truck and just pulled the cable all the way out from inside the console, which made it easier to wrestle with the cable shroud. If your parking brake adjust is really seized, this is also one way you can get the cable out of the adjuster fitting - cutting it at the rear will give you a ton of slack to work with in the front, unless your cable happens to be seized somewhere in the middle of the shroud instead of at the drum fitting, like mine.

The cable enters the cabin through a hole in the floor, seen here:



It should just pull right out with a little bit of force.

If you didn't get factory replacements (they are on intergalactic backorder at the time of writing this guide - I went with the CarQuest house brand, because they were available and nearby), they may not use quite the same seal as the factory cable. I have read that Dorman drum-end fittings don't for very well, and while the CarQuest house brand fit there, some of the rubber mounting grommets that are supposed to for the frame rail brackets didn't QUITE line up perfectly. Works fine though.

In my case, the aftermarket seal lacked the long internal boot that the factory seal had (pictured below) but the dimensions of the sealing surfaces were identical.

I was able to get the seal off of my factory cable by just pulling carefully but firmly after giving the cable end a little bit of silicone grease. I think having the internal cable and barrel stud removed may have helped.



And then some wrestling got the aftermarket seal off the new cable, and the factory seal put in its place.

If you're following this guide while you do the job, now is a good time for a break. Here's a picture of the cat that lives at the hardware store closest to my house, where I am a regular customer for stainless metric hardware, wire wheels, and spraypaint:



Now comes the part where you get out your very best six point sockets and wrenches and get your very best swears ready. Follow the cable and undo each of the bolts (12mm heads) holding the brackets to the frame (and in the very rear, the leaf pack). Take careful note of their orientation, and set them aside. For extra points, clean them up with a wire wheel as necessary and give them fresh paint. You can let the paint dry while you have a beer and look at cat pictures on the internet.

From here, you just go in the reverse order. I went back to front. I was lucky enough that none of the bracket bolts snapped, so I was extra nice to the next guy (myself) and wire wheeled and Neverseized each of the bolts before replacing them. If you do dicker your bolts or brackets up, have fun figuring out how to secure them without pinching the cable assembly.

Getting the seal back into the cabin hole was definitely a trick and the most frustrating part of the entire project. I gave it a kiss of silicone grease on the bulb end and wrestled with my hands to get it mostly seated, then pushed it home with a homemade seal pusher, which is just a cheap flathead screwdriver that I knocked all the corners and edges off on the business end. The driveshaft is RIGHT in the way, so if you screw around for too long and can't quite get the right angle to push the seal in, you may very well want to drop the carrier bearing to give yourself some room.

From here, just climb back into the cab, reconnect the barrel on the front of the cable to the parking brake adjuster and either proceed to the other side, or re-tension your parking brake adjuster.

Snap your console back together, and poof - done. You just saved yourself anywhere from 500-1000 dollars in shop hours.

 

Reading that makes me hope I never have to do that replacement job on my truck.

 

Nice job. Good pictures!

As you’ve seen those bolts that broke are not much.
They torque to 71 INCH lbs.

 

Nice write up. I have a feeling that very soon down the road, Ill be replacing my parking brake cables too. When I was bleeding my brakes the last time I noticed that right where the cable is bolted to the drum, that the cable is starting to bulge, I'm suspecting that moisture made its way in there and is rusting the cable from the inside. With that said, are you saying that you cannot reuse the boot above the drive shaft where it enters the cabin or am I reading that wrong?

-J

 

You can indeed reuse it, if you end up with aftermarket cables that have a seal you don't like the look of. Let me re-read my writeup and edit to clarify.

Also, re: moisture entry, I'm pretty sure that's what got mine - the outer jacket was actually cracked at the fitting on the drum. If you get water in the drums, even condensation, moisture can also easily make its way up inside the cable from the inside.

The aftermarket cables I picked up have a slightly different design of fitting - instead of the outer jacket being bonded to a tiny nub on the fitting, the fitting itself has a long tube that crimps to the jacket, which I believe will hold up better. Since I was already there and it was brand-new clean, I also went ahead and wrapped the entry point of the jacket into the crimped tube with mastic tape, as an extra moisture barrier.

 

Great write up...I love your backorder joke...I ordered the cables in Nov for my Feb inspection...had my rear drums replaced and the cable worked for about 4 weeks...during inspection! But now it's screwed again...If I have to use my cable I make sure I can back out and slam the brakes to loosen it...

Now I have to at some point bite the bullet and install that cable...

Lubed the connections today just to do it while I was working on my front brakes...

 

Just the sight of those U clips makes me shudder with a bit of terror... however, given I've got a seized cable, I'll be doing this job myself within the next couple of months.

A question for folks -- My rear drums are very, very rusty. I was able to turn the bleeder valves on both sides recently when replacing some bad lines, but I asked my tire shop if they could break the drums loose and they refused citing that they worried they'd be unable to put them back on.
Are there any specific concerns, recommendations, advice for folks on these?

 

Have you ever had the drums off? Mine were real bad and had a lip worn in it and were very difficult to get off. You'll either need to adjust the shoes down through the rear window on the backing plate, or drill out the pins that hold the shoes on in order to get the drum off. Drilling the pins might be easiest and just replace the rusted out hardware. You can grind down the lip on the drum just be careful you don't hit the braking surface.

 

That's good stuff - thanks! Correct - I've never had the drums off while I've owned the truck (2y or so).

As I understand this, in addition to the "drum rusting to the hub", the other concern is that the shoes are dug in behind the lip and the drum is likely to get hung up on them without a severe "backing off" of the shoes, correct?

When I go to do it, I'll be replacing everything generally replaceable (drums, shoes, hardware), so the only hesitation on buggering up the existing stuff would be protecting my ability to bail out and not disable the truck... So I'm definitely not averse to grinding the drum. Are we talking like an angle grinder or something smaller like a Dremel?

If I drill out the shoe pins, would this create an issue with referencing the setup of the brakes? (In other words, springs coming apart and making a cluster f). I consider myself a moderately skilled amateur as far as DIY auto repair, so I have a little experience but not a ton and will definitely need to take some pictures and care when disassembling the old stuff so I properly install the new stuff.

Thanks!

 

(Haven't been on here recently so sorry for the delay)

If I was able to do this project with my super rusty drum and amateur mechanical skills, you'll be able to.

If you're replacing drums you don't need to grind. I reused mine and did grind the lip with an angle grinder - just don't touch the braking surface.
If you have to drill out the pins you'll still mostly be able to reference everything - take pictures/videos. You should be able to use the adjustment wheel through the access window on the backside to compress the shoes unless you're lip is really bad.

Honestly, following this video will be very helpful as it's such a mess inside the rusty drums that seeing the new hardware in the video is easier to follow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5j3sKgNoEs&t=1200s