'99 Hand Brake BREAKS!

'99 SEL (180 kmiles) PARKING BRAKE BREAKS AWAY FROM ITS FLOORPAN MOORING!

OK, for most of you this will never be a problem. I am a compulsive hand braker. I think this the way to park a vehicle properly. And on top of this passion, my house has a very steep driveway ... so the parking brake is used a LOT and forceably! But so it is on my other vehicles ... and this is the first problem of its kind for me.

I have been getting clues ... just ignoring them! The parking brake handle has, for a long time, moved toward the driver's seat as it is pulled up into park position. And there is a bit of left-to-right looseness ... that has been getting worse.

So I finally thought it might be time for a close inspection. I pulled the dust boot off and checked the TWO (Why not THREE, Ford?) 10 mm hex head bolts. (16 ft-lbs recommended). The rear one was loose by 3/4 turn.

The front bolt was secure to the weld-nut but the floorpan was ripping apart. I now had a ragged hole in my floorpan at the front of the park brake assembly ... and the park brake was lifted about an 1" in front.

The two bolts go through the (single metal thickness) floor pan into two nuts welded to the bottom of the pan. There is no reinforcement plate. From below the front nut can be inspected ... but to work on this area the exhaust system and a riveted heat shield will have to be removed.

It's going to be a few days before I can start repairs, but I thought a "heads up" was in order.

Stay tuned!

(Edit update: There was a double metal thickness ... not "single metal thickness" as I said above .. at the bolt locations. But the two thicknesses totalled to "not enough" ... think of two paper-thin pieces. I know this is an exageration, but not by much!)

I never understood why ford placed it there, most other mini vans are located at the front foot pedel type were most were always at. When I first got my van I did not think it had one because it was an automatic and vans were classified different.. Just a guess on that theroy.. But low and behold oneday I looked down and there she was.

Thanks for the heads-up.... I have a '99 and the hand brake always seems to need adjusting. I use it in our driveway as well, and anywhere with a slight slope, as the car seems to rock back about 2 inches when settling into park....! More than any other automatic I've owned, at least....

Dan D
Central NJ USA

I haven't really started yet ... but have gathered a few tools and "stuff".

I have bought a new parking brake control (F78Z-2780-AA) just in case there was an engineering upgrade. Nothing exciting ... just a metal button actuator rod, replacing a plastic one ... that upsets the latch pawl. Not worth the $65 I spent!

I have removed the original hand control. And now I see that the floor pan has begun splitting around both mounting bolts .... this thing was headed for a disaster!

I intend to fashion some sort of load bearing plate to go under the floorpan. This will distribute the stress over such a large area, that I hope, it will stop the splitting of the pan.

I haven't really started yet ... but have gathered a few tools and "stuff".

I have bought a new parking brake control (F78Z-2780-AA) just in case there was an engineering upgrade. Nothing exciting ... just a metal button actuator rod, replacing a plastic one ... that upsets the latch pawl. Not worth the $65 I spent!

I have removed the original hand control. And now I see that the floor pan has begun splitting around both mounting bolts .... this thing was headed for a disaster!

I intend to fashion some sort of load bearing plate to go under the floorpan. This will distribute the stress over such a large area, that I hope, it will stop the splitting of the pan.

I forgot to mention I have seen this before on imports with stick shifts. It not really uncommon ,the load bearing plate is a great idea !! Besides its really all you can do, no reason to take it to a shop and have it welded.. But you may want to after the fix put floor board puddy or some type of epoxy to keep exhaust fumes at bay if a leak were to form.

REPAIR COMPLETED!

The hand brake now works great! I can "hang the Winnie on a hill"!

Now the hand-brake also releases fully. This allows the self-adjusting assemblies to do their thing. I had not realized my brake was not releasing earlier. After a few trial parkings, my foot brakes work better!

I used an old mower blade for metal stock in making the reinforcing plates. This is very hard metal, and difficult to get bolt-holes through. But it has a slight "crown" shape, this works very well for this application. A separate plate was necessary for each bolt.

I made some digital photos, but I don't know how to post them. If some of you more cyber-capable young'ns want, you can send me a pm with your snail mail address and I'll mail you a disk. (The JPEG files are rather large. ...and I've yet to add text.)