Brakes: parking brake on a 51 commander

[tsehisht]

Hi stud friends
I am having problems with the parking brake mechanism on a 51 commander,
it seams that when i'm pulling the parking brake hand lever, its only pulling something like 16mm on the cable that goes to the wheels.
is it designed that way or something is not right on the car?
i cannot get the parking brake to work properly (rear turner disc brakes) with such short cable travel.
please advice, I'm reached a dead end
thanks
Eyran

[TWChamp]

I was thinking you might have cables stuck from rust, but since you said you have disc brakes on the rear I assume you have fairly new parts.

Have you jacked up the rear and tried turning each wheel when you pull the hand brake on?

[jclary]

Eyran, I saw your post early this morning. I'm not aware of the time difference between USA Eastern time and Israel, but was hoping someone familiar with rear Turner Disc conversions would post a knowledgeable answer. I am not familiar with this brake conversion, and therefore can not answer your specific question of... "Is it designed that way?"

However, I can speculate that a "rear" disc conversion is not a common arrangement, and especially on a 1951 model. I currently own two contemporary vehicles with four wheel disc brakes. On those, the parking brake mechanisms are entirely different than any of my older vehicles with "drum" brakes.

It would help if you could get your car on a lift, and get some pictures of how your rear brakes are mounted, and if there has been a mechanical modification to the parking brake mechanism to accommodate the conversion to discs on the rear. My thinking is that properly modified, 16mm movement could be sufficient. However, from my perspective, I don't have a good grasp on this type of conversion for a rear axle to grasp how such modification should look to be functional. Do you know if the rear end is actually original to the car? Is it still a tapered rear axle, or has it been replaced with a more modern rear end already designed for disc brakes?

One last question for forum members...What is the procedure to modify a parking brake on vintage vehicles when converting to rear disc brakes???

[tsehisht]

Except the brakes, all the suspension is original on the car, i got the emergency brakes working but it doesn't have enough power to lock the wheels while the car is rolling, guess next step is to install a foot oprated parking brake level from modern car.

[TWChamp]

I would like to see how the hand brake cable is attached to the rear brake cable. If it has a bar for leverage, then you just have to move the rear cable pulling point closer to the bar's pivot point so you get more leverage. In other words the hand brake will pull back more and pull the parking brake disc pads harder against the disc.