parking brake woes..

hey all..

I\\'m the new guy just found this site and signed up ok heres a little back ground info

I just bought a 98 crown vic of the kid upstairs for $100.00

now the car came with a big red rejection sticker on her and on the back of the envelope the title was in was written front tires L lower ball joint parking brake and sway bar..

these are the issues that earned her a big red R

my thoughts if I invest $400-$500 do most of the work ill have a nice looking and rideing car..

so two new tires two lower ball joints one upper ball joint a pitmen arm a steering link two sway bar links
a new parking brake cable the cable didn\\'t fix the parking brake issue

now the guy I bought her from said that he just replace all the rear brakes pads and shoes. .well ive tried to adjust the cable not enough still wont hold the car on a grade now the guy who did the work says that its adjusted as much as he can get it that I need to put these after market brackets that take up slack in the cable I look under the crown vic next door and sure enough there are two of these of clips with the cabel hooked into it I couldn\\'t crawl under but ha anyone heard of this a bracket or clips to take slack out of a cable

Have not heard of them off hand but the steel cable can stretch. I would really recommend a new cable if it has stretched that much you may have a cable ready to fail or someone put the wrong cable in prior.

its got a new cable..but thanks for the thought.. anyone else heard of em ? well I found they sell em at napa for $700 bucks made in china but it dosent look like it should work if I figure it out ill post a pic

So have you gotten anywhere with the parking brake?
Whatever those things you're referring to are, they should not be $700 at Napa. The entire parking brake system doesn't cost that much.

Wrong cable seems like a possibility however the car should have a device to take the slack out if it is the proper cable. But then again... a new cable shouldn't have slack to remove.

The shoes were replaced... were the rotors? Or are new pads trying to hold the car on old worn out rusty rotors? if so...

One thing you keep saying is you're adjusting the cable. Are you adjusting the shoes at all with the star adjuster? That's really what's going to do it.... on an '04 Explorer I had to keep taking the rotor on and off, took me 2 hours to get the parking brake to hold without dragging for inspection. It sucks to do but that's how it must be done on a lot of vehicles. If you can effortlessly put the rotor over the shoes, they are not adjusted right.