9 replies to this topic

[Brad_Raybould]

Basically my MOT was a few days ago and failed on a few things which I have fixed over the weekend but the one fail was the handbrake efficiency which I have known about for a while. The car always fails on the handbrake every year. I manage to fix it but always becomes weak again within a few months.

 

Anyway, I had a go at doing it the weekend but had no luck, it's got a fairly new cable (replaced this time last year), new drums fitted a month ago, new shoes fitted about 3 months ago and have lots of meat on them as you would imagine, it passed the foot brake test with flying colours but I'm not too sure why the handbrake keeps going weak after a few months. What I tried to do to fix the handbrake on Sunday was adjust the handbrake at the nut on the lever which now the handbrake feels really tight now like I cant pull it no further than 3-4 clicks but had no effect on the handbreak strength what so ever. I tried adjusting the actual drum adjustment which needed doing anyway after changing the drums as they have bedded in a bit which helped a little bit but I didn't want to adjust them any more than what I did it to as they would be dragging too much while I was driving.

 

So after all that, I cant think of anything else that would be causing my handbrake to be like this?  

Edited by Brad_Raybould, 10 March 2014 - 12:23 PM.

[Jordie]

Slack cable off at adjuster nut.

 

Press foot brake a couple of times to centre the shoes.

 

Adjust drums up correctly.

 

Ensure the arms which enter the back of the drum are free. Possibly remove and lube up if not. Ensure the clevis pins through the cable into these arms arent excessively worn.

 

Then work back, ensure the cable is free and not catching/trapped anywhere. Make sure the quadrants are free and able to move.

 

Then re-do the adjustment on the h/brake lever and get someone to operate the lever on and off, whilst you check for movement of all the correct parts

[RedRuby]

From what you say you have done most things, the only thing I can think of that would affect the handbrake is the handbrake quadrants, you don't mention them. If they are seized when you pull on the hand brake lever all you are doing is taking any slack out of the cable and possibly stretching it. Excuse me if you already know this but the handbrake quadrants are located on the underside of the radius arms and the handbrake cables thread around them to each rear drum, check them for movement as they can get seized with dirt from the road and the pins rust up a good clean out with an old screw driver and some lubricant like wd40 should free them off.

[filski]

I would say grease 'er up, as well as do all the adjusmtments, check the rubber gters on the backplate and ensure no crud is on there or in there.

[Guess-Works.com]

Also make sure the lever arm is not seized at the pivot point, but my first thoughts are quadrants as per RedRuby

[Brad_Raybould]

Thanks so much for the replies so far. I never though to look at the quardrants. I had quite busy day though yesterday. I will check them and do as suggested by everyone. I'm starting to get the feeling it is the quadrants as I forgot to do that.

If I get chance today after work, I will check it again and report back to you all.

Edited by Brad_Raybould, 10 March 2014 - 02:53 PM.

[sonikk4]

They do tend to seize and cause a lot of the issues most peeps have. Good luck with but a decent penetrating fluid and Copperslip will be your friends here once sorted.

[Badboytunes]

From what you say you have done most things, the only thing I can think of that would affect the handbrake is the handbrake quadrants,

 

+ 1 ^^^^

[carbon]

Brad,

 

One other thing worth checking... I had similar problems with weak handbrake on one of my cars a long while back, no matter how hard you pulled it just would not lock the wheels up even with the adjusters a long way in.

 

Turned out I had put the handbrake cable quadrants that fit onto the radius arms on the wrong way round. They then fouled the radius arm before the handbrake was fully applied and then no matter how hard you pulled it didn't make a jot of difference.

 

I put them back on the right way and it was transformed, and it's not faied the MOT for handbrake since...

[Brad_Raybould]

Update guys, I've now sorted it and I feel a bit stupid for this. All the suggestions of checking quadrants, etc, I did all that and they seemed very clean and greased/lubed up very well. So I just decided to take the wheels and drums off to double check the assembly inside the drums. Well, I found my problem after realising that the hook type things that push the shoes when the handbrake is pulled wasn't really pushing the drum enough. That's when I spotted my stupid mistake. When I fitted the new shoes, for some reason, I put the one shoe in upside down on both sides. I felt so stupid after this. So I swapped them the right way around, assembled everything back together and adjusted the shoes up again and then tested everything. The handbrake has never been so good!