I just installed a new parking brake cable on my 1999 4Runner. The rear wheels are off the ground. To test I put the 4Runner in Drive and slowly pulled on the parking brake lever in the cabin. I can see the driver-side wheel stopping, but nothing happens on the passenger side. When I pull on the exposed parking brake cable connecting the two sides behind the rear axle, the passenger side wheel stops.

The bell cranks are still original, have not been cleaned but seem to move with ease when I pull on the exposed cable. I have tried to figure out how force is transferred to the passenger wheel, but it's not clear. As far as I can tell the cable is held in a protected casing and directly transfers force from the handle to the driver's side. Please help!

-Sax

There should be a cable connected on the driver's side that goes over to the passenger side. Not the best picture, but you can see it here (ignore the red circles):

Yes, there is. That's the cable I mentioned in my post. How does it work?

There's a pivot about 6-10 inches away from the driver's side brake cylinder. The passenger side connects to that so that when you pull the parking brake lever, it pulls the driver's side bell crank tight. That causes the lever on the pivot point to then pull the passenger side bell crank. It sounds like the wire going from the driver's side to the passenger's side is either loose, or the pivot is jammed. I'd start there and pull the lever on that pivot point and make sure it's pulling the wire and moving properly.

Here's a better picture care of @JerkyDrewster :

And another post with some good advice:

How does the Parking Brake work?

So the pivot is the bolt in the center of the picture that's screwed in from below?

I looked at the other thread you posted. At the end of that thread it seems the OP's still got the original problem - the passenger side emergency brake doesn't deploy.

I had already loosened up the pivot bolt so I can pivot the attached cable left and right with my hand. I still don't see how the main cable pulling on the driver bell crank (the cable moves to the right) is causing the pivot assembly to move to the left thus bringing tension to the cable that connects to the passenger side. The main cable is not connected to the pivot/ pivot assembly in any way. It passes through the casing and only connects to the driver bell crank. If you need me to take a video of anything please let me know.

Appreciate your efforts to troubleshoot this for me.

-Sax

The casing receives the same amount of force to left as the cable does to the right. Since the pivot moves freely, the force ends up balanced between the cable attached to the pivot/casing combo and the cable going to the driver's side. If your pivot is really free, I can't explain why it is not pulling on the passenger-side cable.

I considered that initially, since the casing attaches to the pivot point assembly. I must be missing something rather basic. What's moving the casing to the left? As far as I can tell it's static between the pivot attachment and where the 6 prong clip is fixed inside the cabin. The main cable slides freely through the casing. This has been such a head scratcher for me.

I had the wife operate the e-brake with the shifter on D while I observed from the back. The left wheel stopped at 7 clicks and the right one at 12 clicks. On every subsequent attempt the right wheel would stop on the 12th click and the left one kept going. Now I feel lost even more.

I could see the pivot move slowly to the left. I undid the pivot bolt and cleaned up everything, putting silicone paste on all contact surfaces. Now it glides extra smoothly, or so it seems. I will adjust both brakes tomorrow using the drum brakes adjusters.

Is your left rear brake way out of adjustment?

It wasn't initially after I installed the new e-brake cable. It would regularly stop at 7 clicks on the handbrake.

Are the brake shoes themselves adjusted on both sides so that there is a little drag when you rotate the wheels? Have you pulled the drums and checked the shoes? The proper adjustment is done with the brake adjusters, not the cable adjustment. My e-brake, which I use every day holds well on 2 or 3 clicks.

You guys should know the Toyota spec is 7-9 clicks....

http://www.teamtoyota4x4.org/archivi...br/pbl/ovi.pdf

Yeah, mine's a little tight. I just did a major rebuild and that's how it worked out. I kind of like it, I used to have to pull it to the top to hold on a hill.

A few more developments since I posted last.

The original brake shoes were worn unevenly on the bottom (it was either the front or the back I don't remember). There's plenty of material left, but I had already ordered new brake shoes, so I installed those. I didn't change the drums. I also changed the brake fluid and managed to bleed out two of the brakes (RR and LF). I unwound the right side brake adjustment a few more turns than the left one. This seems to have worked to stop both wheels spinning simultaneously when I tested the parking brake, going to N from D on the shifter. This is with the rear wheels off the ground.

After getting everything put back together and putting the vehicle to the ground, the parking brake is holding when parked on a hill. I have had a squishy brake pedal for the longest time (bad master cylinder?). For now I am going to leave everything as is. I still don't know how the right side parking brake works but I am going to move on from this. Thanks to everyone who chimed in to help.

-Sax