Sterling e brake cable install in e350

Justgosurfin

Active member
I just installed the sterling in the rear on Friday but am a little puzzled as to how the cables are routed up beyond the one retaining clip on top of the diff.

Any pics or guidance would be great thanks!
 
Last edited:

shenrie

^^^ hates cars
ujoint sells a kit for this as neither the stocker lines or the newer lines will really work. I still need to do mine too after the conversion. when we first got the axle in it looked like you could just move the rear cable hanger on the drivers side forward and make it work, but I haven't had time to mess with it so hopefully someone can shed some light on this for an easy (cheap) way to get this taken care of.
 

Justgosurfin

Active member
Yea I have their kit but it’s just the cables. I’m just trying to get an idea of how they run to the hanger as I forgot to get pictures of the old ones.
 

CaptainBuilt

Well-known member
I'm not familiar with the UJOR kit, but here how it's done on my buddies van.

zuLSbTGl.jpg
 
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eblau

Adventurer
They seem to bind and seize no matter how you route them...

On both of my square body F350s the passenger cable goes through the double cable clip thing on the frame rail then awkwardly under the front spring hanger (and subsequently chaffes on that hanger) then goes forward of the drivers side shock, over the diff and is secured on the clip then forward of the passenger side shock then into the backing plate. A traditional center equalizer and two forward facing cables would have eliminated this nonsense routing but whatever. The short drivers side one goes under the same spring hanger then forward of the drivers side shock. Both cables seem to rub the shock body on my trucks as evidenced but marks on both the shocks and the cable sheathing.
 

Justgosurfin

Active member
I'm not familiar with the UJOR kit, but here how it's done on my buddies van.

zuLSbTGl.jpg
Thanks! I also need to see how each cable is routed from the axle and through the frame to see where they are meant to be supported. I’m gonna be that weird guy in the parking lot today lying underneath random ford vans that don’t belong to me.
 

Justgosurfin

Active member
They seem to bind and seize no matter how you route them...

On both of my square body F350s the passenger cable goes through the double cable clip thing on the frame rail then awkwardly under the front spring hanger (and subsequently chaffes on that hanger) then goes forward of the drivers side shock, over the diff and is secured on the clip then forward of the passenger side shock then into the backing plate. A traditional center equalizer and two forward facing cables would have eliminated this nonsense routing but whatever. The short drivers side one goes under the same spring hanger then forward of the drivers side shock. Both cables seem to rub the shock body on my trucks as evidenced but marks on both the shocks and the cable sheathing.[/QUO
Thanks! I also need to see how each cable is routed from the axle and through the frame to see where they are meant to be supported. I’m gonna be that weird guy in the parking lot today lying underneath random ford vans that don’t belong to me.
They seem to bind and seize no matter how you route them...

On both of my square body F350s the passenger cable goes through the double cable clip thing on the frame rail then awkwardly under the front spring hanger (and subsequently chaffes on that hanger) then goes forward of the drivers side shock, over the diff and is secured on the clip then forward of the passenger side shock then into the backing plate. A traditional center equalizer and two forward facing cables would have eliminated this nonsense routing but whatever. The short drivers side one goes under the same spring hanger then forward of the drivers side shock. Both cables seem to rub the shock body on my trucks as evidenced but marks on both the shocks and the cable sheathing.
Awesome thanks.
 

Justgosurfin

Active member
Good lord the typos in my original post. Writing in hast on the phone creates some good ones. I have edited it and promise I am a literate member of society.
 

Justgosurfin

Active member
Followed the example above with a minor twist.

I used the metal cable end retainer piece that came on the driver side sterling cable to connect to the forward van cable.

I then took my original van cable end retainer and drilled the two rear cable holes out a bit to accept the sterling cable ends which had stoppers that were slightly larger than the original cables. Then I drilled out the forward side of the same bracket and on through the rear side so that a #10 machine screw could be inserted from the direction the sterling cables enter. The machine screw then goes through the rear side of the forward cable retainer piece and bridges the gap between the two retainer pieces.

Add a washer, lock washer, and nut (I chose against a nylock nut so that I could start ghe nut by hand) to the forward end of the machine screw and tighten until your cables have the desired tension. On my van, that length happened to occur when the two retainer pieces touched. I hope this is a very lucky coincidence! Use as long a machine screw as you can so that it can all be together and still be easily manipulated to get the cables ends out and in again if you need to make any future adjustments.

Ah geez just take a look at the pics haha.

I just did it last night with the van off the ground so I’ll report back on how well it works but the pedal felt like it was getting tight.

See also the photos of how I routed the cables. I’m a little worried the passenger side doesn’t have quite enough slack with the 6” lift but we’ll see. Driver side comes inward under the leaf spring and then up to the brake line mount after doing a small bend for droop. Passenger side has a bracket that mounts on top of the diff and then goes up to the brakeline mount with the speedo sensor wire.
 

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