Parking Break Not Disengaging

The front parking brake cable is usually rusted. Functional, but a PITA to release.

Great.. and probably a PITA to replace too eh?

I want to get this switched out so I can use my Turbo Timer without having to crawl under the car every time I get back to it.

I'll check out the auto parts websites.. hopefully this isn't a dealer only part.

Depends on your rear brakes. Disk or Drum? You can probably find it on www.partsamerica.com. Just enter you vehical info. At least you can get some part numbers.

It has disc in the rear.. but I think it has the parking brake in the small drum..

I'll run some numbers..

Thanks,
Marc

Lube the cables first

Parking brakes have been sticking since they invented them. Just lube all the rubbing points. Not hard at all.

There's 3 cables that could be rusted/seizing. The first cable is the one that goes from the pedal through the floor and out the bottom of the car probably about 2 feet long. That one likes to seize. The other two are the left and right cables that attach to the drum and or caliper. These also like to seize inside the sleeve. Depending how rusty things are under there there's a few ways to see if these cables work. A pretty easy way is to unbolt the hook (basically it's a long bolt/hook to tighten and or adjust the parking brake cable). Once the cable is loose and laying on the ground you can grab each of the left and rear cable sections and give them a good tug with your hand, they should move and rebound back to their original positions (if not then you know where your problem is). You can do this same thing with the front cable section. Good luck.

Oh, just noticed it's an 88 shelby z. If you have the original brakes on there they may be the kind with the caliper parking brake style. There's one more area that likes to seize. On the caliper there is a lever like arm which has a spring that basically releases the caliper parking break. This lever/arm tends to rust and then doesn't rebound properly. It could also possible be your calipers. A lot of people have these problems with the 88 and 87 style caliper parking brakes. Have fun.

Next time I make it back to my garage to work on it, I'll check the cables as you had mentioned. Maybe I should try to lube up the levers on the calipers... pulling back on those levers the last little bit is how I get the parking brake completely disengaged. I don't have a mental picture so I don't even know if there is a way to lubricate them...

Thanks for the input.

cawcislo said:

Oh, just noticed it's an 88 shelby z. If you have the original brakes on there they may be the kind with the caliper parking brake style. There's one more area that likes to seize. On the caliper there is a lever like arm which has a spring that basically releases the caliper parking break. This lever/arm tends to rust and then doesn't rebound properly. It could also possible be your calipers. A lot of people have these problems with the 88 and 87 style caliper parking brakes. Have fun.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much difference there is between the 88 and 93's. But, for what it's worth, here are the pages out of the 93 FSM for the parking brake. Thought it might help with how the cable are routed. Hope it helps a little.
http://www.pbase.com/rmscott/parking_brake

Also (jsut remembered) AutoZone Manuals On-Line. Here is the link for the 88 Shelby Z parking brake;
http://autozone.com/servlet/UiBroke..._us/0900823d/80/08/f0/fd/0900823d8008f0fd.jsp

Good Luck!