Magnusian

Hi, I am a new (6th) owner of a short bed 1988 2WD Pickup (22R 4sp std. trans), it's in rough shape but overall decent condition, wooden box, mostly rust-free cab (blue housepaint paintjob ), good frame. It came without a working parking brake and as such it's presently registered as unfit for the road and getting it up to snuff will be something of a summer project next year. My end goal for the vehicle being use as a daily driver and farm-related tasks, little to no offroad, and a proper paint job.

I cannot seem to find any information regarding the lengths of the two rear parking brake cables for this truck. The original rear cables had apparently snapped and were removed before I purchased the vehicle and they are long gone. After numerous searches online I have found a plethora of vendors who stock cables but none seem to carry cables specific to the short bed. Many have fit notes state the cables are either meant for 1 ton, long bed, 1/2ton or 3/4ton, nothing regarding standard and short beds which is confusing because of the mention of long bed. I am under the impression that my truck is considered a 1/2ton but need to know if the cables I want to order are the right size or meant for a different sized bed. The lengths are listed as 77.5" and 77" for the right and left rear respectively, but am unable to confirm if they are the right lengths for my truck (as I have nothing to compare/measure). Any help would be appreciated. I have tried consulting both the haynes manual and the factory service manual to no avail.

I would prefer to find these online as my only other option would be to buy them from a Toyota dealership (they couldn't/wouldn't tell me the lengths) and buying cables from a dealership would be about 4x as much as buying them elsewhere, which more than I paid for the truck itself.

I've seen that another option is to buy the rear disc brake conversion kit from lc engineering which comes with parking brake cables, but considering this is a 2wd truck and I do not intend on doing much off-road (unless you consider driving around relatively flat farm fields picking up firewood/hay bales as off-road) this seems overkill, and is indeed the most expensive option. However considering some of the weights I could possibly haul with it in the future it may become necessary.

Also, is it safe to assume that the front brake cable is the same length (std cab) regardless of bed length? The front cable is still on my truck (prev. owner didn't want to rip apart the dash to remove it) but much of coating is gone, which leads me to believe it will bind and should be replaced as well.

Sorry for the text wall, but right now I have to "park" by leaving it in gear; while not considered road-worthy it does get driven around my farm, mostly to test things I have already replaced/repaired and I would prefer a safer way to park it.

Robert m

iTrader: (2)

i did a little research on the brake cables when i was doing my long travel rear setup and yes, the front cable is the same (cab for cab) no matter the bed length. i have a short bed with long bed cables so i could keep my parking brake with my rear setup but i dont know the lengths of them. however i do know the long bed cables were like a foot longer then the short bed cables. i would just crawl under the truck and measure from the back of the rear drum along the frame to the cross member and see if it comes close to the 77'' you found before. even if you get the LB cables and you have a short bed they will still mount up you will just have to move the U clamp down where it mounts on the frame which is not really a big deal. wihs i could be more of a help but try rock auto for the cables http://www.rockauto.com/

Magnusian

Actually, rockauto is where I was considering ordering the cables from. I'm in Ontario though and am worried if ordering might cost me almost as much as the cables after shipping (they seem to charge a lot for a short border-hop), customs duty and other taxes. I am trying to find a retailer in Canada who sells them, would save me a lot on shipping and customs.

Thanks for the insight though, I was worried that if I ended up with cables that were too long that I'd have to find some way to cut and crimp them, if it's really only a matter of moving some stuff around then that is good to find out.