Help - picture/diagram inside drum for parking brake attachment '95 Ranger

[wynneth]

I havea 1995 Ranger extended cab that I traded a high school kid for. (Good trade, the kid was worthless... j/k) Something must be missing from inside the rear drums, the parking brake pedal was going straight to the floor so I check everything there and finally opened up the drums. What I see doesn't make sense - I see the cable coming into the drum, a spring wrapped around it and a ferrule/bulleted type solid end - but it's not attached to anything in the drum. I've looked everywhere possible, the stupid Chilton's manuals these days are so shoddy they show a picture and explain everything EXCEPT where the parking brake cable would be attached. All I'm asking is if anyone out there with a ranger will pop open a rear drum a take a couple pics for me - maybe I can sort this out. I'd like to know what I'm looking for before I go jack one up at the scrapyard - if that's possible - or pay $100 at the ford house for a parking brake actuating lever or some other crap I may not need.

Thanks

[Teddyzee]

Only pictures I have





Search a little more, something like "rear brakes" and containibng posts by teddyzee. I posted these pics in a thread in the past year that also contained a nice exploded diagram. Good luck.

[wynneth]

I haven't been able to find your older post with the diagram (that would probably be the best thing ever), but this first picture may offer some insight. It's close to midnight after a long work day, so I'm not going to roll out the jack and compare just this minute. I might not be as bad off as I thought, I THINK the part your parking brake cable is shown connecting to IS there, I just think it didn't look obvious that is where it hooks in. I'll take a look tomorrow, and I'll try to search a few more times for your older post with the diagram.

[Adam Baker]

We need to know a couple things about your truck. Rangers came with 9" and 10" drums, depending on the options available w/ the truck.

From what ive found, the std setup is you have 10" drums if the truck is 4wd, is Ext Cab, or has a 4.0 V6 engine. If it doesnt have one of these, then usually it has 9" drums. This isnt the case 100% of the time, but its usually how it is.

[wynneth]

Thanks for the quick reply. I took it out this morning to see if teddyzee's pictures were any help (no such luck unfortunately). They are 10" drums. I've inspected the best I can and I just can't seem to find where the end of the parking brake cable should connect. From teddyzee's pic and the haynes manual it would appear to be attached somewhere to the adjuster pawl(haynes manual says 'actuating lever') - but I just don't see or feel a spot for it to go. I could just strangle the people who did this section of the haynes manual, the picture for removing the parking brake cable is zoomed in so all you can see is a slot it goes in, a hand, and the pliers used to remove it. Also, if it saves any trouble in the future:
1995 Ford Ranger Ext Cab, 2.3L 4 cyl, manual transmission.

[wynneth]

Now we're getting somewhere - I think I've found the issue. According to some very serious google-fu, I should have an actuating lever attached to the back of one shoe... Nothing there, on both driver's side and passenger side. It's just - gone. My guess is Mr. Do-it-yourself-without-doing-it-right teenager I got the truck from lost the retaining clips and decided it was easier to go without a parking brake than get more clips, who knows. At least now I know what I need. FYI in case someone else ends up with drum brake questions, I found this site: http://zenfixit.com/?p=285 with a pretty good photo walk thru of the rear brakes, which is how I got to this picture which told me what I was missing.

[jamesc]

look at the sissy in the picture usin gloves, what a pain in the ass it is to do drum's with big bulky gloves lol