Emergency Brakes (noun): The safety lever when everything else has blown up.

I refuse to call this the parking brake.  Parking brakes are only used for parking (i.e. a chunk of wood under the tires would do the same job).  Emergency brakes on the other hand are your secondary brake system for the unfortunate situation when your main hydraulic brakes fail and you still would like to come to stop.  Believe it or not, but these tend to get overlooked alot in cars.  I can't even begin to tell you how many rental cars I have rented that had their emergency brakes non-functional.  For that matter how many people do you know that will tell you all engine modifications they have done, but not once mention anything about how to stop their car?  Well I love to go fast, but I also love to be able to turn and stop alot more than going fast.  Something along the line like nobody has ever died from falling, it's always that nasty sudden stop at the end.  Anyways, onto my rant about the emergency brakes, and why you need to have them test fitted before getting the car undercoated.

The original Oh Crap handle

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The original emergency brake was a simple pull handle under the dash.  This was connected to a lever arm under the transmission mount when gave you the necessary leverage to engage the rear drum brakes and stop the car.  To release, a simple turn of the handle would disengage the locking pin and you could push the handle back to it's resting place.  Unfortunately for my new drivetrain the entire original transmission mount was removed.  I could of fashioned a lever arm under the new crossmember but I wanted a much cleaner look than what Ford originally pieced together.

The new Oh Crap foot pedal

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Looking at different setups, I knew I wanted to go to a foot pedal operated emergency braking setup.  Mainly because in the event of an emergency stop it would be really nice to keep both hands on the wheel.  After a bit of looking, I finally came across this little jewel from Lokar.  What's really nice about this setup is that the mechanical leverage that you need to operate the emergency brakes is made right at the foot lever instead of somewhere else.  That and you can press down with your foot alot harder than pulling back with your arm.  To release, all you have to do is pull that nice shiny knob right there in the upper left of the picture.

Another reason I like the Lokar setup

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The main problem I had with locating a suitable emergency brake lever is the clearance under the dash because of my brake booster.  Luckily the Lokar setup was only 0.75" thick.  This allowed me to squeeze the base as close as possible to the brake master cylinder.  Why, you may ask?

Just enough clearance

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That's right, like everything else in this car, there is just enough clearance for it to work.  Once the Inner kickpanel is installed you can still get the better portion of your foot right in line with the lever without scuffing up the panel too much.  I'm thinking of a different foot cover though.  All my other pedals have horizontal pads.  Luckily there are two screws on the backside that I can take the foot pad off and do whatever I want.

Wilwood Inner Drum Brakes

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The really nice thing about my emergency brakes are the inner drum brakes on the rear axle.  This give me the benefit of a totally seperate mechanical braking system for emergency purposes.  Here you can see the drum shoes that will reside inside the "hat" portion of the rear disc rotor.  This is basically the same setup as late-model Ford Explorer brakes.

The first big Opps...

Ok, so now you see the beginning and the ending of the emergency brakes, but what of the pieces that connect them?  I must credit Lokar with doing seriously good thinking when they were coming up with their aftermarket parts.  They sell all the interconnecting pieces as seperate kits so you can pick and choose what works the best for your application.  The other nice thing is that all their kits will piece right together without anything else, making it an almost effortless part ordering procedure.  Installing it on the other hand is a completely different problem.  The main problem was the original cable holders were placed in the driveshaft tunnel whereas I needed them on the rear framerail.  Unfortunately by this time I have already had my car undercoated.  Yah, so with great sorrow I had to grind it off in some spots and fit the big holes I was creating by drilling out the original brackets.  Here are some pictures that show the original brackets and all the stuff I had to do to move them.  What's weird is that once you spray on undercoating it takes a few days to get the gloss sheen, so if it appears dull it just hasn't dried fully yet.

Cable routing

Now the real secret to getting things working together is cable routing.  I had trouble trying to figure out how to connect the right rear tire, but eventually found that if you run it up under the rear seat that I get away from all the trouble I was going to have with mufflers melting something.  Here you can also see the nifty adjuster that Lokar uses for taking out the slack out of the cables.

Finishing Touches

Well this was a simple system at least.  Now all I have to do is figure out what kind of foot pedal pad I want.  But that can wait till I get around to doing the final interior touches.