E-Brake cable, need help! (w/ pics)

[cjw916]

I have Wilwood rear brakes, that have drum parking brakes inside the discs. They have click-click drum adjusters at the bottom, same as all drum brakes. I adjusted them much as I used to adjust my drums, car on jack stands, in neutral, rotate wheel with hand, adjusting tighter until I could feel the drum E-brake dragging, then backed-off the clicker a couple clicks. I assume these will not self-adjust snugger as they wear, because there is no cable & adjusting lever inside the rotor hat. That is step one.

I bought the Wilwood cable assembly to replace the stock E-cables. They come with adjusting mounting bolts to mount the cable ends to the frame tab, so left to right tension adjusting is accomplished there.

Then the cable ends go through a brass cable anchor, that has 2 set screws to secure the ends. It then has a large bolt threaded through it, with a pivot connector on the other end to secure the stock E-cable end to.

All of this stuff is adjusted perfectly to work properly. I verify the balancing by when each lever on the backside of the rotors begins to move, and how far each travels. I had snugged the bottom adjusters a few clicks too snug, evidenced by smell and heat after taking for a short test-ride. Backed them off & all is good.

Now, here's my problem. 4-speed car, so E-brake is desirable.

I ordered a new E-cable from Classic Industries, installed it with no drama. When you depress the lever, it goes to the floor w/o securing the car. So, I went underneath & snugged the cable a few turns. Now at about 7 'clicks' from full-release, the E-brake is just beginning to secure the car. Underneath again, a few turns tighter, and now at around 5 clicks from release the e-lever is properly securing the automobile.

I drove it that way for a couple weeks, then one day when I went to set the E-brake, the cable let go & the pedal went to the floor. Fak! The crimp end rolled onto the floor by my feet. It is crimped onto the inside-the-car end of the cable. The cable end looks perfect. The crimp looks perfect. You can see the cable grooves inside the crimp. It is only secured to the end of the cable by friction, I'd say they crush it on there in the manufacturing process.

No big deal. I ordered another one & installed it the same way. Started out very loose, snugged it up 'til it began to work. Stopped where 5 clicks on the pedal secured the vehicle.

A couple months later, same shit happened again! The crimp end pulled off the end of the cable. Fak!

So I ordered cable #3. This time I fluxxed & soldered the end. Attempting to 'braze' it on. My MotoWrench friend told me welding would ruin the cable, the heat would weaken it, but he's seen other MotoMechanics solder cable end crimps in an attempt to strengthen them.

This did last several months, I thought I had finally fixed the weak link in the system. Last night the friggen pedal went to the floor & the cable end rolled onto my driver 's side carpet again!

I am at my wits-end!

All cables came from Classic Industries. They refunded each one that broke.

Does anyone offer a higher quality cable that you'd recommend?

The threaded end has never 'let go', always the crimp cleat slipping off the cable end.

Any ideas? Anyone experience similar headache?

Thank you, in advance, Christopher.

[Finn]

Wheel blocks and avoid hills? 

Just kidding!

[bull]

Same thing happened to me on a standard drum brake setup with am Inline Tube cable, which may very well be what Classic Ind. sells. It had been a couple of years since I bought the cable from them and when I finally got around to putting it to use I pushed it to the floor twice (both by hand) before it let go. In my case the end had never gotten crimped but there was a "scuff" in the plating on the anchor bullet. Inline Tube wouldn't do anything for me unless I paid shipping there and back so I took the cable to work and crimped it with a big cable crimper myself. So far so good.