How to rig this up?

[Old_iron]

The short: I need to have a functional parking brake, it doesn't matter if it's original.
The problems:
1. Apparantly the brake cables are shorter than what came in my 68 GMC. (The rear diff is from a 72.) They dont reach the frame mounts. So, essentially the mounts are in the wrong place. I bought some simple mounts from LMC that you can see in the pics, although they dont have the standoff that the stock ones do to clear the frame.
2. The primary cable (I bought the brake cable kit from lmc) is too short. Probably a foor or more. Can I buy a cable from Home Depot or such and crimp the ends?
3. The support rod has no place to attach on the frame. I know later years a bump out with a round hole in the frame, but my truck does not. As you can see there is a slot of sorts but that's it.

The question: what would YOU do to get this truck set up with a parking brake?

[jeffahart]

If you are not concerned about stock look why not just get a longer cable. I used wire rope clips from Home Depot. It's not going anywhere. Here's a pic.

[dmjlambert]

What would I do? I would use my premium membership privileges here on the forum to post a want-to-buy ad on the parts board. For obscure stuff or when aftermarket stuff just doesn't fit right, I rely on other members to just take the parts I need out of a stash or off of a parts truck and ship it to me. Quite often the things I need are very reasonable for the part and shipping.

In your particular case since you're almost all the way there, jeffahart has a good idea using those wire rope clips. Regarding the slot, perhaps you can use one of those holes that is very close to the slot, make a new hole, or put the support rod through a stout washer.

[El Dorado Jim]

Originally Posted by Old_iron

The short: I need to have a functional parking brake, it doesn't matter if it's original.
The problems:
1. Apparantly the brake cables are shorter than what came in my 68 GMC. (The rear diff is from a 72.) They dont reach the frame mounts. So, essentially the mounts are in the wrong place. I bought some simple mounts from LMC that you can see in the pics, although they dont have the standoff that the stock ones do to clear the frame.
2. The primary cable (I bought the brake cable kit from lmc) is too short. Probably a foor or more. Can I buy a cable from Home Depot or such and crimp the ends?
3. The support rod has no place to attach on the frame. I know later years a bump out with a round hole in the frame, but my truck does not. As you can see there is a slot of sorts but that's it.

The question: what would YOU do to get this truck set up with a parking brake?

I had the same problem, I changed rearends and the cables were too short to reach the brackets, I fabbed up some new brackets and welded them to the frame, not sure about the long cable ? I will look and see what I did for that, because im sure the original one would have been too short

[firedemon]

looks like trailing arm cables instead of leaf cables I thought they were diffrent lengths trailing arms being shorter because they only go half way up the trailing arm and leafs having to go to the frame and the intermediate shorter on leafs longer on trailing arms

[painterljp]

Think I still have some emergency brake cables from a Dana 60 rearend. You are welcome to have them if you just pay shipping. Will look for them this weekend they go from the wheel to what ties into the cable coming from front. They came from a gmc . With leaf springs. And are used. Heres a picture of what they are.

[cbeerman]

Do your backing plates have the GMC style bolt on cable mount or the Chevy push in style mounts?
It maybe eaiser to move the frame cable bracket
If he can't use the cables I would be interested in them for my 68
Also I think the 67-68's used a hook instead of a rod thats why there is a slot.

[randy500]

Ive done this a bunch of times.
1. Weld the new lmc axle cable mount so its inline with the original and the intermediate cable threads through it.
2. Extend the intermediate cable with another cable and another factory connector that is used on each side, now you will have 3 of them. One connecting 2 intermediate cables together and one at each axle cable.
3. Cut the new intermediate cable to fit with 12” or so of excess.
4. use dorman 03339 cable stop in place of cut off swaged end. Its clean and fits in the factory connector, leave the cable long to adjust it, cut it later for neatness.

Dorman 21123 could be a clean cable connector (barrel nut style)) but the cable ends you now have might not be the correct size. There is the original type connector in the package too and you will need that.

Those dorman cable stops have a ball bearing which presses on the cable, suer strong connection. Might have to open up the hole for your cable diameter.

[painterljp]

Heres a picture of ends. Have to find them first. They came off of I think a 69 or 70 gmc 3/4 ton cause we put the Dana 60 3.54? In our longhorn and cables were to short and had to use original ones from ho52.

[Old_iron]

Originally Posted by painterljp

Think I still have some emergency brake cables from a Dana 60 rearend. You are welcome to have them if you just pay shipping. Will look for them this weekend they go from the wheel to what ties into the cable coming from front. They came from a gmc . With leaf springs. And are used. Heres a picture of what they are.

Thank you for offering that. Once you find them, can you measure the length for me from the flange that bolts to the outer back of the drum assembly to the end of the cable? I need to try and tell if they are longer/long enough to work with the existing stock brackets.

[painterljp]

You have a pm finally measured . There is also a clip that goes on afterwards to lock the ends in factory location. I dont have any of those but they are available. These are from a 2 wheel drive by the way.