Drop the 300SD rear end
 

This is a job which started to remove and reboot axles from a oil leak and replace emergency frozen brake cables. What it turned into is an semi R&R of the rear end. So her goes!
Car got backed into garage and put on four jack stands. Then the differential got drained. Notice the leaking axles around the differential. Got to be fixed.

This is gonna be fun!

Next was to remove the wheels and prep for pulling the axles. Research indicates that people have had difficulty re-installing the axles. I found a thread in which a member used a few 8 mm bolts with washer to pull the axle back into the carrier. Took a pic of the bolt as it came out of the hub. I was told that the emergency brake was never used. That information appeared to be correct. Another pic of the leaky axle.

Removed the differential mount from the cross-member and differential and marked axles as to sides. The teeth in the differential look good and there is the C-clip. Not sure if this needed to be done, but each C-clip got bag and tagged as to the side it came from.

After removing the axles from the car, I took them out into the light for inspection. Investigation shows the the sealing band broke on the passenger axle. Packed up axles to be shipped and covered differential with towels to keep out dirt.

Since the e-brake system was original, I going to replace the shoes. Also to get to the e-brake cable they need to be removed anyway. Next attention turned to tackling the sub frame bushing bolt. In my case I was in luck for they where not frozen. Research un-covered a pic from WHunter which shows the best way to remove the sub-frame bolt. The hydraulic jack keeps the 24 mm socket in-line with the bolt head. Pulling on the breaker bar with the slight tension applied by the jack keeps the pull all in line and parallel to the bolt.

Next was to cut the brake cable which was frozen. Used an air dye grinder to do this job. Next was the shocks. The passenger side came out without an issue, but on the driver side, the last bolt broke off at the head while removing the shock. I don't expect that to be a show-stopper in dropping the rear end. I might have to jack the car up a little more to get clearance.

Oh dear that centre hand brake mechanism looks like it could do with a bit of sand blasting

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...scn3020_r1.jpg

Is the return spring dead?

Stretch, I wondered about that also ! That's what salt does to car's coming from the north in this country. The spring still has tension. I've removed it so as to get the free range of the other cable off and to check movement of the front cable. The front cable moved quite easily when pulled with plyers. I plan on replacing the spring as well as the brake cable clips.

Answer
 

The park brake cable spring is fine, as long as reflex tension is good.

I suggest cleaning the parts small enough to fit in one of these, prime and paint after.
Abrasive Blast Cabinet

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Ya might want to get an ultrasonic cleaner for the brake parts... Or, I can bundle up a set of them from one of my cars when your axles are ready...

Oh... Each axle stub will have a set of spacers on them where they go into the diff... Be sure to keep them on the side they came off of...

From the comments then I'm seeking some guidance from the collective wisdom on the forum. Going by Stretches comment on the brake cable mechanism being in the condition it's in, then it needs to be removed from the car and R&R'd. When removing the cable hooks, I didn't study how to remove it from the car but I seem to remember fittings covered with grease and corrosion and what looked like a folded over cotter pin. From the attached pic, what trick is there to removing the assembly ?

There isn't really a trick; but it is often a bit stubborn.

Now that you've got the cables going to the tailing arms cut (or alternatively neatly unhooked from the mechanism!) and you've got the return spring unhooked there's another hook on the lever / cross piece (piece 6) that comes out of the chassis mount on the RHS of the picture you posted.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...e-assembly.jpg

Then you just shove the cross piece towards the front of the car. Then you can unhook the front cable (if this hasn't already decided to self detach)

Yeah, out won't be any problem... Getting everything back in with it all working becomes a chasing your tail kind of thing, but it's fairly obvious what needs to be loose and what needs to be tight when you are reassembling.