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This is a 2 people job. You need one person to lay under the vehicle, and pull with all their might on the portion of the cable coming from the parking brake pedal. The second person must insert a screwdriver into the two holes in the mechanism. The holes will become aligned when the cable is pulled. That will give you the missing 4" to connect the two pieces of cable together.
How to install rear cable for parking brake. There is about 4 inches between the mid cable connection and the rear cable end.
release the e-brake lever. pull on the forward cable; as far rearward as it will go. hold it in this position and clamp a vise grip on the cable where it exists its casing....this will hold the cable out allowing enough slack to connect the intermediate cable or rear cable.
It appears that the coil of cable to the pedal in the cab will come out for what I need. I am anxious to find out. Earlier I had attached a ratcheting strap to pull the 2 cables together and got closer but still an inch away.
Originally Posted by tech2
release the e-brake lever. pull on the forward cable; as far rearward as it will go. hold it in this position and clamp a vise grip on the cable where it exists its casing....this will hold the cable out allowing enough slack to connect the intermediate cable or rear cable.
Hey Mountainmanjoe I looked at the link you sent but it is not the info for the parking cable and not for my 2008 Chevy Express 2500. My cable does not go through the back brake plate.
Auto Zone does not have a repair guide for my van.
Thanks for your efforts though!
The picture below shows how many inches from the end of the cable shroud that comes from the pedal to the stop at the end of that cable. Does that compare to what you all have on yours? it is about 7.5 inches.
Last edited by johnp2008; March 13th, 2018 at 10:41 AM.
Reason: add info
This picture is of the equalizer that joins the two rear parking cables which in turn connect to the intermediate cable. The distance now is about 3 inches from the end of the right rear cable shroud to the end of the stop on that cable.
And with things being as they are I am about 4 inches short of the left rear cable stop attaching to the connection to the stop of the front intermediate cable. I either need to make up the difference from the foot pedal coil and or the compression of the rear wheels. I have already closed the adjuster to bottom out position.
I was able to get it connected but realized after I finished an easier way to do it. As it was, I used two ratcheting straps and a piece of small angle iron with 3 holes and a slot to pull the equalizer to the front. And 2 ratcheting straps and another piece of angle iron to pull the intermediate cable to the back. Then I made up 2 small angle iron pieces and a large c clamp and a pipe wrench to compress the spring on the rear left. It gave me just enough room to barely connect the cables.
The easier way would have been to take the spring off of the E-brake shoes and take the shoes off of the top center where they ride. This, likely would have given me the extra cable I needed.
I also found out that there is no slack in the coiled cable near the foot E-brake to speak of.
If I think of it, I will load pictures of the angle iron pieces. I still needed to tighten the adjusters! I was surprised. The cables seemed very tight.
Hoping to test it out soon.
Hey Mountainmanjoe I looked at the link you sent but it is not the info for the parking cable and not for my 2008 Chevy Express 2500. My cable does not go through the back brake plate.
Sorry my bad. You said rear cable end so I thought that's what you were talking about. These vans did not change too much from year to year. Glad you got it in. So did your previous cable break, or is this preventive maintenance?
March 11th, 2018, 7:56 PM
rear parking brake cable
