So I just bought an '87 5spd 4wd with the 22r. Here's a picture:



I've had it for about a week. Yesterday, the e-brake cable broke, about an inch from the cab end of the cable. I read around a bit on here and that seems like a somewhat common place for the cables to break. So, I decided to try and fix it since the remainder of the cable appears to be fine. I ended up drilling and tapping a hole for a 10-24 bolt into the end of the rod which is attached to the handle. Then, I drilled a smaller hole next to and slightly overlapping the tapped hole. I put the broken cable end (after snipping off the frayed section) down into the bottom of the the threaded hole, then I pushed it over to the smaller hole, while keeping the very end of it in the bottom of the threaded hole. I then tightened the bolt down until it squeezed the cable end in the bottom of the threaded hole. I had disconnect the other end of the cable to pull a lot of slack through into the cab, so I could make the connection.

It seems to work well so far, although I haven't really yanked on it yet. I wanted to really crank the bolt down, but right when I got it pretty tight, the head of the bolt broke off. So, it is holding, but I haven't pulled the handle any more than the absolute minimum needed to hold the truck from rolling. It does seem solid, I just don't want to load it up any more than necessary at this point.

Also, since I lost about 2" of cable, I had to turn the adjuster under the truck out almost all the way. Even after doing that, I can only pull the handle about 4 clicks until the brake engages adequately.

I didn't have a camera with me when I did this, so I made some drawings illustrating the fix. I can take photos if anyone would like to see some, but I'll have to do a little disassembly to get to it of course.

Here's a picture of what the tapped end of the "rod" looks like, with the smaller hole next to it (note also that the original hole and slot for the stock cable are still usable if I ever get a stock replacement cable):


Here's more or less what it looked like with the bolt clamping the cable into the bottom of the hole (although in my truck the bolt head is broken off):

Here's a line drawing showing a cross section of the interior of the end of the rod:


Anyway, I was pretty excited that it actually worked, so I had to see if anyone else might want to try it. Also, I didn't use a drill press or anything... the whole process was very low-precision, so it oughta be pretty easy for anyone with the correct tap and bits to do.

Andy

Great idea. I wonder if the drawings took more time than the repair ?

Looks cool man.
Mine isn't working either. The cable looks fine but only one side moves when you pull the e-brake.
I think I am going the D/S parking brake way though.

$195 froom www.allrpooffroad.com
Since I forsee a disk brake conversion in my future.

>>>I wonder if the drawings took more time than the repair ?

Heh heh, if I was a mechanic for a living and didn't draw crap for a living, that would prolly be the case!

I was stoked that it worked, and all I got from the girlfriend was "gee that's great". I had to tell somebody that might be interested, so I figured it was a good excuse for a first post on here.

Now I gotta start fixing a few other things on the truck... like the hum coming from the rear end at high speeds (diff low on fluid or old fluid maybe?) and the Mercedes diesel impersonation that the clacking valves are making.

hey andy, welcome to 4x4wire! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

22Rs and 22REs have notoriously noisy valve trains...it's not always so easy to quiet them down. th adjuster studs get an hourglass shaped wear pattern on the ends of them, and then the come out of adjustment pretty much immediately after you adjust 'em.

you can get replacements from the dealer or cheaper from engnbldr. (EB posts here a lot...very good guy who runs a very good business.)

if ya want to read more about it, do a search for +22RE +hourglass or something like that and you'll get a bunch of threads. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

sounds like you just have a frozen bellcrank...if you wanna hang onto the $200 for awhile (until you do the disc brake conversion), you can just take the bellcrank off (bolts on from the inside of the backing plate...just pull the drum and you'll see it) take it apart, clean it up, paint it, lube it and put it back in...will work like new and cost ya nothing. takes maybe 1/2 an hour not counting waiting for the paint to dry.

I adjusted the valves last night. Everything looked pretty clean and new (the engine was reportedly rebuilt 30k ago) so I didn't look at all the adjuster studs to see if they were worn. I got everything back together, and for the first 5 minutes, the truck was much quieter... then one of the valves seemed to get a bit noisier again. I could just be hypersensitive to the noise now, but it did sounds like it got noisier again. Nowhere near as noisy as before though. ANyway, I'll probably check em again in a week or two and see if I need new adjuster studs.

Also, I was able to see that the timing chain guide is not steel backed. I hoped they would have done that when they rebuilt the engine, but it appeared to be a very dark grey/black plastic with no metal anywhere. BUt it did look very new and not worn.

One other thing: my truck has a bit more top end power than I was expecting, so I thought maybe it would have an aftermarket cam in it. I took some photos of the markings on the cam, but I forgot to bring the camera to work with me to upload them. If I remember correctly, the cam had "CWC" stamped on it at one place, and had some other single numbers stamped on it here and there, like a 5, a 3, and an 8. ANybody familiar with any of these markings? LIke I said, I have photos, but it'll be a day or so before I get them up.

I found an old post on Pirate about cams. Both Tim from DOA and engbldr discussed cams on there a little bit. It sounds like CWC is a company that makes cams (and cam blanks). So, my CWC-stamped cam (actually, the "CWC" and other markings are cast (forged?) into the cam) could have been bought by any aftermarket company as a blank and then ground as they saw fit. Apparently both engnbldr and DOA used to use CWC cams until the supply ran out. I wonder if there's any way to tell exactly what the cam in my engine is...

As far as I can tell, everything else on the engine is stock (carb, exhaust manifold, air cleaner and intake, ignition, etc.) but it definitely seems to make more top end power than I would have expected. I guess the cylinders could have been opened up a size or two as well.

Andy