LJ Parking Break

[PanaDon]

I have an 05 LJR with a 4.5 MC Long Arm on 35’s. For almost a year, I’ve been noticing a metálico click intermittently. It only happens as I start out in 1st gear and won’t occurs over about 35mph. While I had the Jeep up on jack stands and the parking break applied, I attempted to rotate one of the rear wheels and found that I could recreate the sound I’d been hearing. Up until this point, I had no idea where it was coming from. I was glad it wasn’t drive line or axles. I kept doing this until I found that it was made by a pin that is part of the parking break assembly. It, in conjunction with a ‘hold down clip’ applies pressure to the break shows against the ‘support plate’. Now, I’ve tried lubricating every part of the assembly, within reason. That had no effect. I then attempted to place some form of cushioning between the pin and the plate with no luck there either. I then replaced the shoes with a set of power stop shoes. This had no effect. I also loosened everything (cable where it splits to either side and the adjusters in the hat in rotor assembly as well). I then did as the shop manual instructs and slowly tightened (expanded) the adjuster until I noticed a slight resistance while rotating the wheel with the parking break off. I did this for both sides and then tightened the cable until it felt adequate. By adequate I mean that the lever stops comfortably about 3 clicks from the top and will hold the Jeep on a slight incline. Still, this has had no effect on eliminating the noise. I should point out, the parking break functions as I believe it should. There is no other I’ll effect other than the noticeable metallic ‘ting’ that I keep hearing. The only thing I can figure is that the shoes are catching the inside of the rotors at some point and then releasing with causes the hold down clips to move enough to make the pin ‘wiggle’ in the hole where it goes through the support plate. I haven’t had much luck finding videos or simply other people who’ve experience something similar. I’ve seen a few parking break shoe replacement vids but that’s about it. In one of them I did notice a guy saying that the shoes had to sit on these raised nubs on the support plate or else they wouldn’t be in their correct position. I’m going to take the wheels off (again) and the calipers (again) and double check to make sure they are in position. I don’t have a lot of confidence in this being my solution but, I’ve got nothing to loose at this point other than time. If anybody has been through something similar, I’d appreciate any advice I can get. Also, I’ve been trying to do my best to document the entire experience in hopes of sharing it with others once I find a working solution.