Hey guy, I'm trying to figure out why my parking brake doesn't work. The first thing I thought of was to adjust the tensioner. Crawled under the truck and I didn't see it. And the drivers side cable isn't attached to anything. Figured I'd come on here and see if someone would show a picture of how it's supposed to look like. Would go to the junkyard for reference but the nearest one is 3 hours away and they never have any Dodge trucks.

 

There's a bracket that attaches where your rusty clump is and connects the driver side mechanical brake. You still have the passenger side. It's probably overused so take the wheel and drum off and adjust the shoes until it can grab.

 

Thanks, I'm 85 percent sure this is the bracket your talking about ,ordering it now. Going to replace the brake shoes and wheel cylinders while I'm at it.

 

I believe that is correct

 

And this is how it's mounted:

 

From the service manual for a 1996 with rear drum brakes

 

rarely, does the ebrake have to be adjusted. if you have drum brakes make sure the shoe to drum clearance is set up correctly. if to far...the ebrake lever can't make up the distance. You will also have a deep service brake pedal.
Even if you have to adjust the cable...the drum clearance should be set up first before adjusting the ebrake cable.

set up the drums first...and maybe you don't have to tighten the cable.

this is how I do it:
install the new shoes and drum and set up for a slight drag.
step on the service brake 3x...this centers the shoes to the drum.
perform your final shoe to drum set up.
check the ebrake cable and adjust as needed.

 

You might also check the parking brake cables going from your tensioner to your brake drums. My parking brake wasn't working either, had to replace the tensioner and both parking brake cables because mine were rusted out.

 

This. I had a metric ton of problems with my ex-Suburban rear brakes. They did work, kind of, and were PITA to adjust. Eventually they were impossible to adjust in balance, right side was either dragging or too far. Bought a new RH cable and bam, adjustment went spot on at first try. Cable looked to be ok on both ends, housing didn't have any visible faults, but still the cable was sticking inside the housing. Of course, when I sold the the truck and new owner took a test drive, front section of the cable, from pedal to the rear, got stuck... That ended RH brake being totally seized, and it was a fun project to take it apart at the side of a road.