Hi all. Car failed MOT due to hand brake nearside recording little or no effort.
F1 garage did me a free brake check, they said it just needed new shoes and discs (so also pads) and that the cable was fine.


Did that myself as they wanted £200 labour! Shoes weren't actually that bad but as I'd bought em I put it all on. Took it back for retest and it still failed for same problem plus binding!


Worked out it was the pivot thing inside the drum where the cable comes in that was rusted solid. On MOT he had pulled it hard and it had stuck on. Fixed that, but as part of my investigation I disconnected the two cables from the equalizer as I thought that was faulty.


Here's the problem. The handbrake sucked all the cable up I'm assuming as part of its auto adjust. To reconnect it all I pulled out the cable by hand, but now the cable is too slack.


Handbrake goes all the way up, and only on the last 2 clicks does it grip the car. And not enough to stop it rolling forward down a small hill. So no reserve whatsoever.


I've tightened up the shoes until it binds then took it back a few clicks.


I've tried pulling on handbrake, holding cable with pliers so it cant go back, then release hoping it would tighten which it seems to do. Seems to work as can then only pull it on 2 or 3 clicks. But as soon as I take off pliers cable


I've tried reconnecting it to the equaliser by only pulling it out a small amount. I've tried extending the cable path as I've seen elsewhere on the forum, but the handbrake mechanism cancels this out!


Does anybody know how I can tighten up these springs?


The end of the spring which hits the square metal plate hits it on the last (first) click when releasing. Should this happen sooner?


I've seen there was a recall but the pdf I found said it only goes up to 2000 and its the old style handbrake. Yet someone on forum said they got their 2002 one done under recall.


Does anyone have a picture of there's in full working order so that I can check everything is in the right place?


Thanks for bearing with my long explanation. Any help greatly appreciated as mot runs out Wednesday and I'm stuck! I've had 3 mechanically minded friends look at it and they've never seen anything like it.


Its a 2005 GV Auto with discs all round and the little hat and shoes on the back discs for the hand brake.


Here's some pictures just incase you can notice something obviously wrong. Please excuse all the gunk I found under the cover!


Handbrake released




Handbrake on full

 

If you check back on here you will find issues relating to this/your problem with pictures like you have got. I've still to replace my shoes, drum/discs and the cables and be looking into chucking this auto adjust handbrake system as I've no handbrake working at mo. From your picture it shouldn't be hard to bolt down a different handbrake but its the connecting the cable to it that may be the problem.

 

Unless its possible to make that one solid, no auto adjust etc. Lock it up with bolts maybe.

 

Yeah the whole thing is ridiculous. My final option was to clamp / weld it all up solid so that it just pulls the cable normally.


I'm scared to get a new one from wreckers incase I have same problem trying to tighten it up in first place.


I wasn't sure that the other issues where the same as mine, but they all involve mods which don't seem to work for me. Surely there must be a correct simple way of fixing this.

 

Assuming you have reassembled cables correctly, and the shoes and set the knurled adjustment correctly - try this:

- car in park
- engine on
- footbrake hard on
- at least 3 or more pulls on the handbrick
- should self adjust via the clickspring

 

Thanks. I tried pulling it on and off about 20 times while slowly reversing. Seemed to make a small improvement. I'll try what you said in the morning. Mine is the one with rear discs though so I don't see how putting the footbrake on would make any difference?


I've got the Haynes manual which only covers the external parts. Just got a copy of the service manual but its mostly usa foot parking brake and doesn't go into details of the actual springs \ re-tensioning.


It seems my mistake was that I did not release the tension form the self adjuster when disconnecting the cables. Hopefully this will reset it

 

The clock spring is a compensator for pull, it doubles as an anti-stretch function. Pull in my #6 translates as a good 'yukkin'.

 

Just tried what you said about 20 times and it has made some improvement. Reversing at speed and the handbrake acts like an emergency stop only half way up.
Going forward \ facing down a slight hill in neutral it only stops the car with 3 clicks left (was 2 before). However driving forwards about 15mph and pull the handbrake it does bring the car to a swift stop. Before it made no difference.


I'll try adjusting the shoes and then try this again tomorrow.


Sorry I don't understand what that means!

 

You will never stop your car moving, or even moving off in gear from standstill with a handbrake hard on. You are applying a test that does not apply to the UK VOSA requirements. We all used the 'rolling DIY test' for many decades it really will not stop a 3 ton car with a 3 litre engine that's programmed by a computer never to stop.

'Yukkin' means a good hard - not a girlie pull.

Drum braking was purposely designed [leading / trailing edge shoe geometry] to stop cars in reverse not going forward. Our friends over the Atlantic had a 2 decade run of cars rolling backwards down the drive and crashing into things when the brakes cooled off and the metal parts shrunk after cooling down. They changed the geometry of the design so that one edge 'dug' in 1st and it became a world standard.

The fact of the matter is that the old idea of a handbrake as an emergency brake is dead on GV's they are just too heavy my friend.

 

I did a massive amount of work on this handbrake system complete with pictures, do a search on here, the square-section spring is a actually a clutch, part of the auto-adjust system. I think you may poss. have the end of this clutch spring (the lower in your picture) on the wrong side of the metal tab to its left, but check it out, my memory's not too good.
The adjusters on handbrake shoes are old-fashioned and conventional, I remember these in the 1960s. You must get these right before anything else, again in the old-fashioned way, tighten 'em up, then back off until wheel turns freely.
When working as intended, you can just get this system through the MOT, but only just! Read all my contributions, as they are directed at getting it through the MOT, partic. the part about getting any cementite deposits off the drums. These handbrake systems often were binding all the time, resulting in the grey iron being converted to cementite by heat and pressure from the shoes.
Happy braking...

Leedsman.
p.s. If there is a handbrake cable(s), be sure the outer black plastc covering is not being abraided against anything, as once it's cut through, water gets in and rusts the spring-metal outer, and it will bind/jam.