I know nothing about repairing the hand brake on my '73. Will it be an expensive or difficult job? I pull it all the way back but it has no effect on slowing, stopping, or holding the car in place. Thanks for any opinions.
—Mark

 

The parking brake on the c3 is mostly a myth
Forget about stopping or slowing the car, you'd probably do better to open the doors as air-brakes
As for parking brakes... well if everything is set correctly it might hold the car on a flat or very slight hill (slope). They are pretty small compared to most any other system on a similar sizes car.

First, are they working at all? When you pull the handle is there some resistance?
Pull the handle and check the main cable under the car, it should be tight
The cross cable going from the center cable to both wheels should be tight

Next release the brake and take the wheels off the rear and remove the rotor (the wheels are pretty hard to turn with the trailing arms hanging so that doesn't tell you much
Inspect and make sure everything is actually there
Have someone apply the brake (not all the way though as the rotor isn't there to stop them) and see if the pads move and return when it's released
If everything looks good, install the rotors and use the adjustment procedure to set the pads via the hole in the rotor
Once set, well they are what they are
M

 

Thanks for all the wonderful step-by-step help. All I know right now is that when applied, it does nothing. I'll look under there and see if I can see any cables.

 

There is the main cable that runs from the handle more or less down beside the driveshaft towards the rear differential
Before it gets to the diff, it attaches to a cross-cable that goes over to each wheel, the outer sleeve is attached to a bracket on the frame and another on the trailing arm on each side.
Start there and work your way in to the actual brake mechanism and hopefully you'll find an easy fix along the way before it gets too deep.

Lots of threads on the parking brake and how to set them up on the forum
HIH
M

 

I did this three times before I got it right. If I had followed the advice I am about to give you, I probably could have done it in one try:

Get the shop manual, and follow the procedure therein. A nice fish-scale (to get the proper 80 lb pull) will cost as much as the shop manual. Don't try to save $20- by not buying the shop manual for a $10K car. The internet is not a replacement for the wisdom of hundreds of full-time engineers who designed these cars 50 years ago. Perhaps a simple adjustment is all you need. That's in the manual.

If you dive deeper and replace more parts, don't mix stainless rebuild kit parts with stainless shoes. Use stock steel shoes, with stainless parts.

Make sure the stainless part that holds the brake line is the correct size. I stuck a nail in the gap, and pounded the tab down flat to make sure the cable stopped popping out (I needed to remove the caliper to get the cable back in).

Look up the "Dental floss trick" for installing the springs over the pin retainers. I used kevlar fishing line, and this saved me many hours.

Seriously, follow the procedure in the shop manual, or at least do the best you can without disconnecting the half-shafts (tighten until you can't move the wheel, back it of some number of clicks, the number escapes me, but it might be 7).

Good luck! My parking brake will hold the car on a hill, and will keep it from creeping forward when in Drive in high-idle.