On a '71 K/20 I had, the hand brake spring broke. How expensive is a spring? But I was getting by with pushing in on the handle while I pushed the pedal down. Worked like a charm.
I lived in a farm house in the middle of cow pasture. Had a cattle gate at the road and the old house was fenced in. The lane followed a stream and you cut up the hill to the house. The lane also continued down to some outbuildings. The friend I rented with had a wood recycling business and in the buildings was stacks of beams and lumber.
We always parked facing the house on the flat of the hilltop. One morning I was heading to work. I backed up from the fence and was turning to head out when I remembered something I forgot. I set the brake, truck idling (manual truck), the truck was facing down the hill. I'm going through the gate to the house when I heard the familiar sound of the hand brake pedal popping up. The truck takes off, boards over the tailgate bouncing, lights on in the early morning light, headed straight for the outbuildings. There was a pretty good drop-off at the lane (about 4'), then flat (about a truck length), then the building. The truck jumped off the drop-off, landed, and as it was bouncing up busted through the wall from the height of the hood down. It went in as far as the windshield, the siding touching that. A huge stack of beams kept it from running through the building, but that did move a good bit.
I thought I was pretty lucky since it fit just between two posts of the buildings framework and the windshield didn't break. It did have white paint rubbing on it. Truck was still idling, I hopped in, backed it out, and headed up the lane still on time for work. It felt like it steered a little funny going out the stone lane, but it was a rough one. Got on the paved road and it wanted to go left and right but not straight, tires screeching. So I turned it around, headed back to the house, and called out for work.
Everything looked ok, but when I looked really close I could see on the steering knuckles , the arms that the tie rod ends attach to had rust flaked off. They were both stretched. Apparently both tires hit the huge stones those posts it fit between were standing on. I had to order two Dana 44 steering knuckles. The good news was they came loaded with ball-joints, so it was an easy install. The bad news was while I was waiting for them to come in we had a big snow storm and I was without my 4wd. And that was the only snow we got that winter. I still laugh about it. What a sight that was to see. I was bummed when it happened but once it was fixed I was laughing
