Strange handbrake problem

[chimpsinties]

Yesterday my handbrake came up a lot more than it usually does. It will go on but you have to pull it up about 6" instead of 2".

I have a 1.2 with drums :dapprove: on the back.

I have a feeling that one of my handbrake cables may have snapped or come loose. This happened on my last car.

Also the brakes used to feel really "keen", now they kind of have a 2 stage effect. You can feel them bite then you have to push your foot down about another inch to get them really stopping well. Don't know if this is connected to the handbrake but it did seem to happen at the same time.

I think I'm in need of new brakes (have heard a bif of a squeel occasionally from front left) so was thinking of just getting the lot from ebay. I've seen you can get front discs/pads for about £40 and rear drums/shoes for about the same. Then some new handbrake cables for about a tenner each.

Anything to watch out for?

Cheers for advice chaps

 

[Struggler]

wouldnt have thought it would be connected to the handbrake,
they work off different systems.

the handbrake is probs the cable snapping to one of the drums,
hence making the cable a lot more slack and meaning you have to pull it up further to secure the car,

jack the back up with the handbrake on and see if either of the wheels spin.

other than that, it might be the brake shoes at the back collapsing,
in which case you need to get that fixed before it seizes the drum.

 

[chimpsinties]

other than that, it might be the brake shoes at the back collapsing,
in which case you need to get that fixed before it seizes the drum.

What do you mean by this?

I plan on fixing it over the Easter weekend. I'm gonna get the bits from EBay

 

[guysy]

The Handbrake is a cable working on the rear 2 drums, The brake shoes could be fucked, Or the cable could have snapped as said.

The front brakes run off a different system, Check your fluid level, Pads, If your having pedal feel issues its worth getting the brake fluid bled.

 

[chimpsinties]

The Handbrake is a cable working on the rear 2 drums, The brake shoes could be f**ked, Or the cable could have snapped as said.

The front brakes run off a different system, Check your fluid level, Pads, If your having pedal feel issues its worth getting the brake fluid bled.

I get this bit, I was wondering specifically what he meant by the "shoes at the back collapsing"

I'm pretty sure the cable has come off one of the drums. It was never very good on one side anyway, you could feel one side of the car go up a bit when you were on a hill and put the handbrake on.

 

[Struggler]

the brake shoes are like metal arcs with brake pad material on the outside, that push outward as you brake,

when the pads get low, pieces of braking material can separate from the arc and fall into the drum, if these pieces get lodged anywhere inside the drum it will effect the braking, occasionally jamming them on overnight, if enough of the material gets lodged, it will seize the drum solid!

happened to me a few years back

 

[chimpsinties]

the brake shoes are like metal arcs with brake pad material on the outside, that push outward as you brake,

when the pads get low, pieces of braking material can separate from the arc and fall into the drum, if these pieces get lodged anywhere inside the drum it will effect the braking, occasionally jamming them on overnight, if enough of the material gets lodged, it will seize the drum solid!

happened to me a few years back

Is it worth whipping the outside of the drum off to check for loose floaty bits of brake shoe you think? Like I said, I'm not going to actually get chance to repair this properly til next weekend. Maybe a quick check would clear the matter up so at least I'm buying the right parts.

 

[guysy]

Yep its worth taking the drum off for inspection, You can have a look to see if theyres any damage, And also you can adjust the pistons to make the shoes closer to the drum (i.e. brake better) < I think.

 

[chimpsinties]

Jacked the car up tonight and strangely the handbrake still stops both wheels turning round. I know you can't really turn them by hand the same as a car one hill can turn them but still. That suggests to me that the handbrake cable isn't broke. I ran out of light so I couldn't take off the exhaust sheilding you need to inspect where the handbrake cables attach together into one.

Grrr damn these short days. Oh well, clock go forward soon so we get more after work tinkering times.

Also didn't get time to take the drums off. Will I not need to replace the bearing seals if I take off the drums? I'm sure I read somewhere that you're always supposed to use new ones.

I have noticed that some stupid tyre monkey has gone and lost one of my locking wheel nuts and the other side was loose as anything. I've been driving on them like this for quite a few months now. :nono:

I'll have to try and get a couple of spares.

 

[guysy]

Get a spare bolt off ebay.

As for the handbrake adjuster is your car a ph1? theyre sometimes under the handbrake cover... But if its ph2 i think they are under the cat heatshield yeah.

Interested to see what people say about the drums... im going to adjust the cable under the cat heatshield, Or possibly take the drums off to adjust the tightness.

Do new bearing seals need to be used??

 

[chimpsinties]

I don't know if anyone is still interested in this but I got round to changing the rear shoes at the weekend.

I think I paid about £15 for the set of shoes in the end then I had to pay £8 for 2 new locking wheel hub nuts from Mr Renault and about £12 from Halfrauds for what turned out to be completely the wrong replacement spring set so I just ended up re-using the originals cos they were in pretty good nick.

It finally decided to give up completely on Saturday night when I set off to go to my mates house who has a garage to fix it. In the past if it stuck on it would release itself if you drove off but this time there was smoke pouring off the rear wheel when I got about a mile away so it wasn't going anywhere. I had to fix it outside my house in the road which I hate doing cos you can;t trust all the Pikeys walking past not to nick your tools.

Here is the state of the old shoe on the left hand side. Totally broken in half. No wonder it was sticking.

Not a hard job in the end. Takes a bit of fiddling to get all the springs back together but not too bad. Hardest bit was getting the seized drum off but it soon shifted when I reattached the wheel and gave it a proper good pull. :approve: