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Did you check out my thread? That sounds exactly like what mine was doing.

The backing plate is an integral part of the parking brake system. If it's damaged, it can cause all kinds of issues with the parking brake. Check out my fix here: [SOLVED] 96 Explorer 8.8 Parking Brake Won't Engage

Makes sense! There is a mount point where the two rear cables meet the front cable, maybe that one broke? While you're under there, you may want to pull the rear wheels and check the backing plate condition. There's a pretty bad design flaw which I discovered and fixed on mine. I doubt it's...

Did you try releasing and resetting the brake several times? Mine would go to the floor with no resistance every time I disengaged the parking brake by pulling on the cable. It's got some kind of automatic tensioning system. If after setting and releasing it 3-5 times it's still not working, I'd...

You're welcome! I just got my project finished, and it held okay on our steep hill. Brakes smelled a bit hot when I got to work this morning, so hopefully nothing got damaged and it's just adjusted as tight as possible. Will update if there's anything new / relevant, but otherwise assume my...

Turns out I was correct! The backing plates were weak, which allowed too much up and down movement from the spreader plates. My brother and I fabricated a repair plate out of a piece of angle iron and I welded it in place. I'd injured my dominant hand recently, so I think the welds turned out...

I did some more work on it yesterday evening, and it works better now. It's still not right, but I have a new theory as to why. The channel that the arm sits in may need to be bent such that it's tighter. I'm thinking the arm is twisting as it expands, reducing the pressure it exerts on the...

You're welcome! I just bought new ones, since one side had been gutted and I didn't want to bother with breaking it free. Then my dad wanted to use the old parts for welding on, so we knocked it apart with a hammer and punch with one side in the vise. I did grease them up really well though!

Yeah, that's a problem... mine's a manual transmission and gets parked on a hill. I'll eventually get mine working correctly and if I remember to take pictures I'll post them so you guys can see what I did.

Sounds good! I'll have it up on the lift tonight (modifying the bracket for the rear brake lines, which is currently too high on the Ranger). I'll try and tighten them up a bit more. Yeah, I don't really see how they're supposed to adjust by themselves. The spring kindof holds the adjuster in...

Thanks! I ended up welding some extra material onto the arms, since I didn't want to have to modify future cables. It seems to work okay now, but it's not holding very well on hills and requires more pressure on the pedal than it should. I'm thinking it may wear in / self adjust so it engages...

Yes, I adjusted them to the point where they wouldn't fit and then backed it off a bit. Looking at the assembly, it appears that the arms don't even start to contact the shoes until the cable is pulled pretty tight. The 97 Ranger has drums, one of the main reasons I went with the Explorer axle!

EDIT: Problem was solved by reinforcing the backing plate and then adjusting the brakes with everything assembled. See pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JoB9P2vztk2yrg2JA END EDIT I just installed the axle from a 96 Explorer into my 97 Ranger. During the process, I replaced just about...