Went for my annual vehicle inspection today. Passed everything, including emissions, EXCEPT one thing... the emergency brake wouldn't set. After checking the brake at the shop, I drove home. I tried it one more time in the driveway (with the motor running) and it still didn't work. I turned the truck off and, out of desperation, tried the brake one last time. And it worked!!! Why would it do that?

If I read my Haynes manual correctly, there's no adjustment for the emergency brake so I was wondering what I was going to do to pass.

 

rear brakes might be out of adjustment.

 

Mine has gone to the floor a couple of times also and I was surprised because I never use it. I'm going to call the dealer about recall NHTSA Recall Campaign ID Number 94V-169 to see if it applies.

 

It's the strangest thing. Like I said, the brake did OK after I turned the truck off when I got home. When I went back out about 5 hours later, the brake wouldn't work again. So, I turned the engine off and tried the brake again.... and it started working again. So I hauled my butt down to the inspection place and got it checked before the brake decided to go out again. I'd bet that if I went out to the truck right now, it wouldn't work again. Would the rear brakes being out of adjust cause the E-brake to do that?

 

If you are referring to the emergency brake pedal not locking in place, it could be the ratcheting [locking] cog is sticking and not engaging the teeth on the gear. Try spraying the mechanism with CRC or WD40.
If your emergency brake pedal goes all the way to the floor board, it may require an adjustment. The adjustment linkage is located along side the frame, almost directly below the drivers seat.

 

The pedal goes all the way to the floor but doesn't activate the E-brake. If I read my Haynes manual correctly, there is no adjustment for the E-brake for the 92-96. I'll reread it tomorrow to make sure that I'm not passing along any bogus info. I still don't get the correlation between turning the engine off and the E-brake starting to work again. It absolutely will not work unless the engine is turned off before pressing the pedal. Then it'll work for a short time.

 

The recall defect "The parking brake control self-adjust pawl does not line up properly with the self-adjust rachet allowing the pawl to skip over one or more of the teeth in the ratchet.".....94V-169. I still need to ask my dealer to check this. The previous posts were correct. My rear brakes were out of adjustment and not even working. When launching a boat the fronts locked and slid and the rear did nothing. Had it in 2H. I though I was going to launch the Bronco also. I kept working the parking brake to adjust them and now have rear brakes. Now the parking pedal goes to the floor only intermittently.