I have been poking around on here for a while, but couldn't find much info on this problem.

My rear brake pads are down to about 1/16" thickness after a whopping 36,000 miles. Whatever, it's time to change them, I guess. No hard use or trailer towing here...the truck is basically a daily driver. Anyway...

I'm trying to get the rear rotors off, starting with the right rear. It appears to be rusted to the axle endshaft, which was typical BS with the drums on my old 1997 F250. It's nothing that a can of Liquid Wrench and a couple of hours of hammering and prying can't fix, I suppose.

I noticed that the right rear parking brake cable had popped off of the lever on the inboard face of the dust shield, so the cable was just flopping there. I then noticed that the PB lever was stuck all the way forward all on its own, which is holding the right rear PB engaged (and holding the rotor in place as well). The left rear PB cable is still attached to the lever, which is all the way back, so that side looks properly disengaged, anyway.

I hammered on the RR PB lever, and managed to force it backwards to disengage the PB. That was the easy part, since the rotor is still fused to the end of the axle. But, I'm a little pissed that something screwed up in the RR PB, since the truck has a hair over 36,000 miles and the warranty expired about 6 weeks ago. You can count on one hand how many times I have used the parking brake in the last year and a half, so there's no telling how long it's been screwed up.

Has anybody else run into BS like this?

Thanks,
Mark

 

OK, I figured it out. After 1/2 can of Liquid Wrench and hammering a 2x4 into the backside of the rotor, I was able to get to the drum parking brake. The PB cable is hooked to a lever that is actually part of a 2-piece assembly of levers. One appears to be corrosion-resistant steel (the hook piece), while the other internal piece appears to be cast iron (or something that enjoys corroding). I had to put the 2-piece assembly in the vise and hammer them apart from the corrosion. One piece is supposed to pivot on the other with a pin, but there was so much rust in there that they had pretty much fused together. I hit the nasty one with a wire brush in a die grinder, and put some lube on the pin to try to keep moisture out.

The left rear parking brake appears to be fine. The 2-piece lever assembly moves freely, but I'll clean and lube everything just to be safe.

I bought my truck used when it had a year and a half and 17k miles on the clock. It spent that original time in Chicago, during one winter, which probably had everything to do with the corrosion. Now that it's in Florida, the worst it sees is rain and occasional mud, but no salt. This might be something that you northern guys want to keep an eye on, though.

Mark

 

The more I think about it, the more it seems like somebody had to make a deliberate effort to unhook the right rear parking brake cable from the actuator lever on the inboard side of the dust shield, so this problem probably existed before I bought the truck. I had plenty of fun hooking them back on, so I doubt that they would easily fall off on their own. Yaaaay, buying used vehicles rules...

Mark

 

If ever there was a need for an aftermarket part, I wish SOMEBODY would come up with plated PB levers. The stock junk is known for rusting and hanging up (also attributed to the cable freezing in the hole through backing plate) and when this happens, you get the "death shudder" after a few miles on the highway.

Somebody...make them aluminum, stainless, galvanized, whatever...just give us something to replace the stock rust-magnet levers for the PB.

On second thought, maybe I'll make and market them...

 

Needless to say, after this parking brake debacle, there's no way in hell that I want to attempt to remove any of the spark plugs anytime soon...

Mark

 

I'm with you on that one!!! and I don't even live in the "Rust belt"