October 2020 What did you do to your Willys?

Saturday, for the fourth time this year, I pulled apart the parking brake assembly.

Two years ago, I cleaned all the 90w out, put new shoes and springs in. She worked great. At the beginning of the year, she suddenly stopped working. I pulled it apart, anyone who has been in there knows this is a pain in the …. So, the link popped off the lever. I reattached and everything was good. Then it did it again. Thinking the link was bad, I ordered a new link along with the spring and shoe pivot arm. Back together, she worked fine, for a short time. Then, the same thing. Apart it comes. This time, I notice the rivet holding the tab on the shoe pivot is lose. I try to hammer it tight, with little success. I really didn’t want to take the backing plate off. I put it all back together and try to tighten down the spring tension on the link to the arm thinking this was the issue. All back together and, with the first yank, it falls apart again. I noticed the arm had some excessive play where it attached to the stud. Since you cannot get the arm off without the backing plate backing plate being removed, I figured the bronze bushing was missing allowing the arm to rock and pop of the link. This all happened in the first three months of the year. I tracked down a NOS arm and found someone who said they had a NOS backing plate. I figured the play in the pivot tab rivet was also part of the problem. I waited for months for them to track down the backing plate and they could not find it.

Wanting to hit some trails next week and tired of not having the parking brake, I decided to tackle the problem once again. I took the backing plate off and attempted to hammer down the rivet. I ended up making a mess of it and the tab. So, I MIG welded it. The NOS arm was not the right one. I pushed out the bushing and installed it on the old arm. Back on the stud, the excessive play was still there. Consulting the parts book, I realized that there was supposed to be a flat washer under the nut to take up the play. Well, silly me for not looking at this long ago to realize somewhere along the line this washer was not reinstalled. All fluids back in with everything back together, she appears to work, so far. I cringe every time I pull this apart worried that I will tear the output seal. So far, leak free.

Sunday, I cleaned up the crack over my distributor and put some Permatex epoxy putty over it. It has been weeping since I got her and thought I would give this a try.

Monday, I installed a cigarette lighter socket. I didn’t want to drill any holes in the dash. So, I made a mounting bracket and attached to the dash support bracket using the hole to mount the circuit breaker on the military models. Now, I can use my Garmin GPS, charge a phone and run my little tire compressor.