Emergency brake adjustment

I pull the brake hand out as far as I can. Crawled under and there is no slack anywhere in cable, linkage, and lever but when pushed, the Jeep rolls with no resistance. I haven’t pulled the drum yet. What should I be doing or looking for to make the emergency brake function properly?

Adjust your brake shoes!

Could it be the lever?  It has quite a bit of movement before moving the shoe. Can this be adjusted?  I checked the manual but it is not clear to me check/adjust the lever. 

Can I adjust the e-brake cable length?

gerrym wrote: Can I adjust the e-brake cable length?

I may have had about the same problem with my e-brake. The shoes were good but when I pulled the cane to set the brake it would not quite engage. It seemed like i just needed a couple more notches on the cane. If I removed the return spring and moved the actuating lever by hand the brake held good. I built a short bracket and bolted it to the actuating lever that would let me adjust the length of stroke. Maybe you can see by the photos. So far it has worked great.   

I’m referring to nut and long bolt in Ralfs photo from earlier reply. 

gerrym wrote: I’m referring to nut and long bolt in Ralfs photo from earlier reply.

Edited by Rus Curtis - 01 Aug. 2019 at 4:25pm

gerrym wrote: I have a lot of free movement in the operating lever before it moves the brake shoe. If I tighten the nut on the long bolt shown in the photo will that take the slack out of my lever?  It looks like that may be the lever adjusting nut referred to in the manual. The manual text and photo are not that detailed to me. Can that adjustment be made without pulling the drum?

[QUOTE=gerrym]
I had exactly the same problem on mine. There was free movement in the handle before it would start to engage the brake. The end on the cable would pull up against the housing before the brake was fully set. As per the photo, I started with a 2" long piece of 1" wide flatbar and drilled 4 holes in it. I then drilled 2 holes to attach a 3/8" cable clamp to the flatbar. The cable clamp attached to the brake cable just behind the eye. I then moved the actuating lever to take up the free movement and bolted it to the flatbar in the correct hole.
This will allow the adjustment in cable length that you are looking for. As long as your cable is properly connected at the anchor points you won't need to pull the drum or mess with the cane or cable. Before I did this I spent a lot of time trying to adjust the brake.          

TERRY wrote: Adjust the shoes through the holes in the drum. The adjuster is on the left side.

Before you do anything else you need to be sure the brake is adjusted as Terry said. The easiest way i have found to do this is to jack up a rear wheel and disconnect the brake cable and return spring. Then you can move the actuating lever by hand, make your adjustment and roll the tire to see if the brake is holding. Saves a lot of climbing in crawling under and yanking on the cane.