Mystery of the Missing Parking Brake!

Missing Parking Brake Drum (Between exhaust pipes)

July 6th was a visit not unlike every Saturday I'd gone to see Stella in the morning.  It was almost like visitation rights.  And this Saturday was the beginning of finding out more about what little hidden morsels Stella had in store for me.  The brake and wheel mechanic Tom had her up on jack stands to expose Stella's under carriage (The view is from the passenger side).  Other than the brake cylinders frozen up front on the drivers side, the entire parking brake assembly was missing.  As you can see in the picture, working from the right hand side of the photo at the transmission and working to the left there is an brake drum.  There is no armature, no brake shoe and also if you look carefully...a dried out rubber boot.  You'll see closer to the driver's side the master cylinder (new) and in front of that a small hose.  This is where the parking brake cable SHOULD be, but it is not. 

Driver's side view

Side of the Transmission, and no parking brake!

A closer look at from the drivers side shows the detail quite well.  The drum is there, the springs, mounting plate, arms, parking brake cable and such were pulled out by the hot rodders.  Perhaps the thought was to convert the entire car to disc brake all the way around.  Yet one of many little things over time that I will begin to realize what the hot rodders logic was.  When speaking to Tom, the handle inside the car was there and everything else was completely missing.  This was yet another opportunity to leverage the wonderful resources of P15-D24.  Those gents have had their cars for quite some time and knew what parts I needed to get.  Thanks to Bob from P15-D24, I was able to find out about the MoPar Streamliner Parts Catalog.  I was able to find an electronic copy and soon had that printed as a reference to both Tom at Duarte Wheel and Brake and myself. 

Below is how the parking/hand brake SHOULD look.  After calling up to San Francisco and speaking to an old drinking buddy, Johnny he referred me to Jeff Adkins at Moose's Obsolete Brake Parts.  Jeff had everything I wanted for the car, would need for the car and one extra thing.  Currently at this point, the car had man made brake pads.  Jeff, however had asbestos pads.  This was a huge win.  The parts I needed, he had.  I was able to put together my first order, of what would become a myriad of parts from Jeff.

Excerpt from the Streamliner Parts Catalog