on my 73,i recently installed rebuilt rear calipers,set venting.now hand brake lever will not fully engage parking brake,it ratches too high,too much slack..im assumong previous calipers were stuck and gave very little motion to hand brake lever.i undid 2 adjusting nuts under neath at cable,but not sure how to adjust slack.do i need to undo cable from caliper,then adjust?what direction do i turn cable?

Where the cables enter the tubes on the body under the boot is nuts to adjust.
Try that.

Do disconnect the cable at the caliper. I think you move the nuts up the cable to reduce slack. You can pull on the open park of the cable and feel the slack. Tighten until you have almost no slack. Do this with the rear wheels off the ground. Spin each wheel to see that the pads are not dragging. You move the adjusting screws until the lever on the caliper starts to move then back off. Test by pulling the e brake handle. It should have resistance with little play.

thanks for the info,but i still dont see how moving nuts on threaded cable tighten slack.i will check it out and move nuts either direction and see what impact that has on ebrake lever at caliper.i will keep cable connected to caliper ,so i can see adjustment effect with nuts.

Moving the cable sheath in or out by loosening the lock nut adjusts the sheath length. Moving the sheath out will tighten the cable. Do not disconnect the cable from the caliper.

i dont get it,how does unlocking the 2- 17mm nuts on brake cable increase or decrease cable length.the nuts move on the threaded cable,but cable doesnt move to tighten or loosen.
i dont see a sheath,just a solid cable with threaded end and locking nuts.

how many "clicks" do you hear when trying to activate the parking brakes? when setting the venting clearance, did you disconnect the cables at the calipers, remove the spacers and what value did you use for the venting? does the T shaped pieces at the end of the cable pivot freely? perhaps it's time for new e-brake cables.

definitely too many clicks,handle comes up high and e brake does not hold.venting set to .008 without cables attached to caliper.i am going to spend some time and figure out the adjustment mechanism on cable and go from there.cables look good.ill check pivot.

Less likely problem, but last time I assembled cables I had too much play and
eventually found that one cable, where it went through the trailing arm bracket,
the 'C' clip was not in the groove. Didn't look obviously different, but when the
cable was pulled it allowed the cable to move rather than caliper arm.

definitely a possibility

pretty sure your venting clearance is too great. don't think the # is correct in the haynes. .04? no doubt the cap'n or eric will chime in if they see this.

Factory Manual.....vent clearance 0.2 mm or 0.079 in......

Stumbled across this older thread while researching for any possible future maintenance, and decided to make a slight correction so nobody picks up some inaccurate info by mistake …

0.2 mm = .008” (not .079”)

And also FWIW, here’s another link to Eric Shea’s excellent thread describing the rear caliper venting clearance adjustment procedure:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...ting++Clearance