231 tcase ebrake setup finished

[Carolina Rock Shop]

Hey guys,
I just finished up Brad's tcase ebrake install now that I got the new bracket from Jess. I know mrblaine had some problems and I don't know what he ended up using but here is what we came up with.

Once the ebrake stuff was finally installed and working correctly, I had to figure out the ebrake lever and cable assembly since the stock setup comes out 8" behind the tcase. This would make for some interesting attempts at cable routing and force issues.

So instead I headed to our local salvage yard and pull out an ebrake lever from a mid 80's mazda B2200. After some fab work and minor console modifications it is working flawlessly. The Mazda ebrake asssembly has approx a 2:1 ratio, to make it reasonable to pull while still exerting a good amount of force. It is spring loaded so it will return when you twist the handle.

Here is a pic of the handle installed.......


The rest of the pictures are at:
http://carolinarockshop.com/art/231ebrake/finished/

The cable is only 4-5" long so it doesn't take much to clamp down with the ebrake and it does not interfere with the shifter at all. It is easy to engage and disengage.

Andy

[mrblaine]

Andy, essentially what I did was to take a stock TJ cable, turn it around and run it off of a bellcrank.

That was after I finished ripping Jess a new one on the phone and on JU in Brad's thread. What a moron for sending something out that pathetic.

He did apologize, gave our money back and promised not to ship anymore until it at least looked like a trained monkey was using the grinder instead of a blindman.

What really chapped my rear was that the only reason and I mean the only reason we purchased his high dollar rear driveline was to get the bracketry for the e-brake.

At the end of the day I could have just bought a caliper from AllPro and been done with it. I mean really, how hard can it be to cut a disc out of some HR P&O, screw up the counterbores on it and mount it to a flange? I was livid that someone with his so-called rep for high quality work would actually ship something that crappy.

Glad yours finally wound up better.

[Carolina Rock Shop]

yeah, Jess told me a few times that he really screwed the pooch on this one. The second bracket brad got was better, I just had to make a couple modifications. The real fun was in telling brad that he now has mazda mini truck parts on his TJ....

Andy

[Jeff Weston]

Why all the work for the t-case mounted e-brake? I know that you get the benefit of the gear reduction in the rear-end for the extra braking power. On the flip side, you have one more thing to protect under the Jeep from the rocks.

Is there something obvious that I'm overlooking?

[Allen]

Originally posted by Jeff Weston
Why all the work for the t-case mounted e-brake? I know that you get the benefit of the gear reduction in the rear-end for the extra braking power. On the flip side, you have one more thing to protect under the Jeep from the rocks.

Is there something obvious that I'm overlooking?

Nope. Generally it's because of the fairly large increase in holding power. All Pro claims their T/C disc e-brake will hold a truck at a 45* angle with the tranny in neutral.

Allen

[mrblaine]

Originally posted by Jeff Weston
Why all the work for the t-case mounted e-brake? I know that you get the benefit of the gear reduction in the rear-end for the extra braking power. On the flip side, you have one more thing to protect under the Jeep from the rocks.

Is there something obvious that I'm overlooking?

In our case Jeff, it was because the GM calipers with the built in parking brake suck. We needed an alternative.

[John]

Can you elaborate on that sucking part Blaine? Planned to use those caliper on my upcoming swap.

[sethmark]

Its very simple. The ratcheting caliper used in the eldorado style GM brake depends on the caliper to act as a parking brake. Bottom line is that there isn't much surface area and accordingly very weak p - brake power.

The t-case idea is much, much better than putting the brake at the wheel as it has killer mechanical advantage.

S.

[John]

Guess I'll be doing some homework on a t-case mounted ebrake for the D20 then. Or just do a line lock and call it done.

[sethmark]

Line locks often bleed back and won't meet the mechanical P- brake requirements in many states.

[John]

Well it seems that the only way to do the t-case mounted one is to do it with a 32 spline heavy duty output on the D20. I'll just put a line lock in for now.
If I ever get to a point where I have to worry about some kind of state inspection I'll address it then.