Slipping Parking Brake Lever(s) in Drum

The last couple months I’ve chased a gremlin rattle coming from my rear drivers side. Two shops swearing “it’s your leaf spring clips, that’ll be $2k to replace them pls” later I popped the drum off and discovered the source of my despair.

The parking brake lever inside the drum is popping out of place somehow despite the spring being sound. This is a picture of the levers in their regular position.
I noticed that the parking brake cable (hidden behind the hub in these videos) runs through a little half-pipe channel that it’s popping out of, presumably causing the arms to come out.

Is this a brake adjustment issue or a stretched cable? I can’t tighten the cable under the cup holders any more or it’ll engage the brake on the passenger side. When slack there’s about an inch and a half of travel before the cross bar angles and I KNOW theres not that much play in the shoes.

And for anyone experiencing a rear end rattle that could wake the dead when driving over the smallest of bumps, be sure to bang the drum when you’re banging around.

 

I don't know if this will apply to your truck, but in mine, I can pull out the cup holder and I believe there's an individual adjustment under it. I don't know if this applies to all models.
Mine is a 2014 with a manual transmission so my cup holder may be different. I can just grab the big plastic insert and pull straight up.

 

I’ve tried to take some slack out that way but I’d have to tighten it too much and the passenger brake would engage. When everything is positioned correctly, there’s still a lot of slack to take out of the drivers side. The passenger side engages almost immediately when I depress the parking brake lever and it takes four or five more clicks to engage the driver side.

 

I don’t remember for sure, but isn’t there a yoke somewhere (like under the center console). My recollection is that it can get gummed up, bind, slip, etc., but also has an adjustable turnbuckle to the single handle cable…..

or that’s the way it was when I fixed my old truck years ago.

 

There's a plastic grommet type stanchion on the back plate where the cable goes into the rear drum. Is yours broken, letting the cable move?

 

Your spring is installed backwards. The coils should be oriented toward the notch on the lever:

 

The grommet on the outside is all good but if there’s one inside that might be busted. I’ve been putting off breaking down the whole brake to get in there.

I wonder if that’s causing those levers to move towards the wheel. I went back with the same orientation I found it in - maybe previous owner(‘s mechanic) went back with it backwards.