[conrasm]

My e-brake cables have been stretched since I put my RE 4.5" lift on, and the passenger side was laying across the muffler. It wasn't a problem until I was wheeling a few weeks ago. The exhaust was hot from doing a hill climb and I had to put my e-brake on at the top. When we went to leave, my passenger side wheel was stuck. The clear coating around the cable had melted inside the conduit.

Here was my fix at the time. Luckily I had a hacksaw with me.



So I looked into longer e-brake cables and 91-95 YJ passenger side cables work well. You have to get two passenger side cables for this too work and the calbes have to be from the later years. I went to Advance Auto (autozone doesn't sell them) and ordered 2 '91 passenger side cables and they were in the next day. They were $21 a piece.

Here's the melted cable...



Installtion is relatively easy if you are OK with taking your drum brakes apart. You have to do that to get the cable off the brake shoe lever and push the conduit out of the backing plate. I didn't shoot pics of that process, but just some highlights of the cables under the XJ.

Here is the length difference, almost 20".



Loosened the adjustment. This unloads the springs at the wheel end and makes disassembly much easier, plus you'll need to loosen that nut as far as possible for the new cables to go on, mostly because the new springs are strong.



Here's the old cables. There are small clips that need to be compressed to remove the conduit. I just broke them off with a needle nose plier. The conduit is the same at both ends.



You can see here the brake ends are identical...



My suggestion for the order of install is, rear wheel first (cable and conduit, I used a pair of needle nose vice grips to lightly clamp the spring and cable to the backing plate while I assembled the brakes), then connect the cable ends to the brake handle T connector.

and lastly, insert the conduit.


The reason why is the new springs are strong and it's easier to pull back on the conduit to get it into the retainer, rather than trying to pull on the cable and wrestle it into the holes.

I had plenty of cable now to flex with and it was up out of the way. I zip tied each side to secure it. Passenger side on the rubber isolator for the exhaust...


And the driver's side to a small bracket that was already conveniently there...


The YJ cables are longer overall, but the difference between the actual cable and conduit will make it seem to be 1 1/4" shorter, so you will have to loosen the adjuster by at least that much. Here is what mine looked like after the being adjusted up...You can see there is plenty of room. I saw one website that said you need to extend the threaded portion (3/8" althread u-bolted to the factory thread, using a long nut to butt connect the althread, or welding the althread) but I didn't need any of those. The guy had a 90, so maybe there was a change at some point.

[andrew2516]

Nice write up...I'm pretty sure I'll be doing an 8" in the spring and I know my cables won't even come close to reaching. at 6" now it rests on the exhaust like you said, but I haven't seen any problems yet on the trails.

[Rescue XJ]

Great writeup. This needs to go into the sticky.

[balloo93]

Stickied!

I had thought I linked the madxj write up, but yours is nice. I love pictures. I've been meaning to do this since the revolver install, I need it badly.

[lifted92xj]

good write up.. i just did my 6.5" and have an inspection comming up in a few weeks so i'll be getting those..as for now i just cut them like you did because theyve already been a problem

[ChewyXJ]

Originally Posted by conrasm

The exhaust was hot from doing a hill climb and I had to put my e-brake on at the top. When we went to leave, my passenger side wheel was stuck. The clear coating around the cable had melted inside the conduit.

Same thing happened to me.

Glad your more motivated than I am and did a write-up.

If I remember correctly the stock lines are around 37" (on my '93) and the YJ lines are around 56". More than long enough for most lifts and flex.

[rayjay]

I totally just did this! Thought about taking pics but was to lazy...

[Jason, aka: Jeepin.com]

I'm running YJ cables on my '95. They're so long I had to cross them over to take up the slack.

[andrew2516]

Originally Posted by Jason, aka: Jeepin.com

I'm running YJ cables on my '95. They're so long I had to cross them over to take up the slack.

x2

[newxj]

Im terribly jealous, it appears your tunnels/undersides are a lot cleaner than mine. I'm currently installing YJ cables in my 2 door XJ, the length is soooo much!

[aquickmopar]

I need to do this as well. Im gonna soon start adding to my lift and will be at 7.5' to 8' I just ordered my brake lines for front and rear but need to do e-brake. So you said to but 2 passenger side lines from a 91 yj? Or does any year yj work?