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Cant Adjust handbrake.....

Faith

Faith

Messages
221
Morning gents,

Just had all 4 calipers, pads and discs on the car replaced with new.

Handbrake was slackened prior so that we could remove the rear calipers. Now we are trying to tighten/adjust the handbrake and it simply doesn't make any difference on how much we tighten it up it still doesn't hold the car :confused:

Anything we should be doing that we are missing?
 
May sound like a silly question, but have the ends of the cables come off the lever on the calliper?
 
No that was what we checked first. The handbrake lever certainly gets tighter/harder to pull up the more you tighten it but seems to have no/little effect on the brakes though.

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Did you pump the brake pedal 10-15 times before tightening/adjusting the handbrake nut on the lever to screw in the rear caliper pistons?
 
Need to pump the pedal before you tighten the cable back up.

With the rear wheels off the ground too.
 
Krzys said:
Need to pump the pedal before you tighten the cable back up.

With the rear wheels off the ground too.
Click to expand...

Pumping the pedal to settle the pads against the discs, sure. Bleeding the system too. But with the wheels off the ground, what madness is this? :)
 
Well, to test the drag so you know when they're seated and then can test the handbrake as you go..?


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CTR_Nick said:
Well, to test the drag so you know when they're seated and then can test the handbrake as you go..?
Click to expand...

Fair enough. I tend to pump the pedal as soon as I've gotten everything together, then do an all-around bleed, then do the handbrake adjustment with one or both wheels off the ground (drag, etc. as you say). I never thought of drag when pressing the pedal since that aspect should be self-adjusting anyway (you can't tune the offset as far as I can tell?)
 
Yeah I have the rear off the ground, one click on the handbrake then wind the cable in until you can just feel it dragging when you turn the wheels by hand.
 
Someone else mentioned that I have to wind the calipers out to give a 1mm gap first and then tighten handbrake cable?! Or is that not necessary?

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Fit and bleed the calipers ensuring the reservoir level doesn't ever drop far enough to let air into the system, top up the fluid and replace the lid. Depress the pedal multiple times until it becomes firm on a pedal stroke (the brakes are actually working). Tighten the handbrake cable while the handbrake lever is at its lowest position until the wheel starts to drag, and slack it off a little until it doesn't any more.

Almost everything about brakes is a back-and-forth thing unless you have a friend to help.
 
Krzys said:
Yeah I have the rear off the ground, one click on the handbrake then wind the cable in until you can just feel it dragging when you turn the wheels by hand.
Click to expand...

This is how i do it after pumping the brake pedal several times to wind out the pistons. Works perfectly since you know that while the handbrake lever is fully off/down there is no drag on the back wheels and when you lift the lever it is tightening to it's maximum potential.
 
Just to throw this in there, until the pads have bedded into the discs you'll get a much reduced braking effort anyway. Not as noticeable with new discs and pads, but new pads alone can be shocking until they mate to the discs profile properly.

This could need a few miles on it to bed the pads in after you've adjusted it all again properly.

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