1982 Pickup, 22r:

Not your standard brake light question...mine keeps coming on because the brake handle is somehow being pushed out (towards my lap) as I drive. I nudge it back in a quarter to half an inch, and the brake light goes off as it should, until a few minutes later, and it slowly comes out again. It never comes out enough for there to be any chance of it engaging (really a half an inch at most). Otherwise, the parking brake works well. I did tighten the system via the mechanism under the bed (just up-truck of the gas tank) to see if that would help, but I'm at the max tightness of that mechanism and it still creeps out.

Not a problem, but a little quirk and pain in the butt I'd like to fix, particularly now that the days are short and I'll be driving in the dark a fair amount now. Any ideas much appreciated!

 

The inner cable is binding on the outer and not enough spring pressure at the other end to pull it all the way back.
if you were to go under the truck and pull on the linkage (in the releasing direction) your handle would likely stay put.
there are several different designs/setups for the e-brakes on these, but if you have the setup with bellcranks on the rear brake backing plates make sure they are moving freely, loosen the parking brake cable, adjust the rear brakes then adjust the parking brake cable until it applies firmly at about half of it's travel. if that doesn't work you will likely need a new cable or more.
once the cable is kinked at the handle end from pushing in on the handle it's probably not going to ever work correctly again. good luck.

 

investigation underway. Thanks for the thorough response!