Couple weeks ago the parking brake went, wouldn't hold at all.

Tightened it up according to the manual (# of clicks).

About 2 weeks later I lost brake fluid (and finally found leak in rear caliper where the brake cable hooks onto the mechanism that engages the parking brake).

I'm thinking of two things:

1 - the caliper failed, which caused the parking brake to fail, after it was adjusted, since it was the caliper that failed, the adjusted parking brake put too much pressure which caused the ultimate leak.

2 - the parking brake was over adjusted which caused the caliper to fail.

I'm replacing the caliper and will readjust the parking brake after replacement.

Just trying to figure out why the caliper failed.

 

I don't see a direct reason why overtightening the cable can cause the leak. I suspect the original problem was in the caliper, and adjusting the cable just postponed the real problem.

Maybe tightening the cable caused the brake to drag, overheating the caliper, causing the leak. But still, the original problem would've surfaced. When I adjust the handbrake, I use the number of clicks as a starting point. But I verify that the handbrake releases properly and sometimes adjust it to make that happen.