Parking brake adjustment 356A ‘59

[Greg Long]

My parking brake seemingly only works on the right side. I’ve adjusted both sides by turning the little brass teeth and brakes work nicely while driving.

1. There seems to be a lot of cable slack when I look under the inspection plate where the brake fuild reservoir is but can’t seem to read/ or figure out how to remove the slack.

2. The cable down the middle of the car seems fairly tight when parking brake is off (little slack).

3. If I try to adjust the rear cable on the left side at the frame I can’t seem to turn that large nut anymore even though it seems like there should be more travel to go.

Anyone have a step by step for Dummies on how to adjust so both sides are equal?

Thanks. Greg

[Jim Liberty]

You found the DUMMY. There are two nuts at the rear where the cables exit the body. One the adjuster, one a jamb nut. To adjust them properly they need to be completely clean, as do the threads on the body. That is how you can adjust the sides independently. Depending on the year, there is an adjustment up front also, it pulls on both.. You need to work all three sometimes to get it right. See if that helps. .....Jim.

[Harlan Halsey]

I might add that the adjusters are often covered with uudercoating, making cleaning them sufficiently to turn quite difficult.