Recently adjusted the handbrakes on the Monza and Omega and both are now fully set on the 4th notch. I had to fiddle around with the cable adjustment on the Monza because I'd slackened it to remove the trailing arms, but on the Omega I just put the screwdriver through the hole and turned the adjuster. Took some doing as the nearside needed the wheel turning upwards to tighten the brake up and offside needed downward adjustment for the same effect!
I did mine in the dark with an anglepoise lamp on an extension lead directed through the hole at the adjuster, out of necessity not design, but it did allow me to see what the adjusters were doing: if the adjuster is being turned to tighten up the brake, you expose the thread on the adjuster as you turn because the adjuster 'expands' to push the shoes against the inside of the discs. If you're backing the brakes off, the thread will disappear.
As others have said, all this is done with handbrake disengaged. I tested mine by pulling the brake on occasionally and bolting a wheel on to give me enough leverage to grab and heave and see if I could move it!
I didn't look at the condition of my shoes, would have known to if the adjustment had made little or no difference I guess.
Again, not the way to do it and on this setup, 4 clicks is a little low.
The key thing is that with the handbrake released thee should be some obvious slack in the cable.
The reason being is that if there is not then the handbrake will keep lightly applying as the trailing arms move during normal driving....the result is shoe wear adn a resulting poor handbrake.
Surely you'd need the cable pretty tight for this to happen wouldn't you. 4 clicks must be about 10mm of movement in the cable . Would it move as much as this with suspension travel?
On another point it's a good idea to stop your hand brake grabbing using Mark's method , at the least just before you take your car for MOT.
Otherwise i
f you get an enthusiastic tester yanking your handbrake on in the brake rollers it can rip the linings off the brake shoes.
I know cos I did it on a Carlton when I first started testing about 10 years ago !!
, as for the exhaust its down to the tester i guess, i have seen a failure on exhaust insecure but hopefully youve just bumped it off & itll hang back up o,k 
go to petes as he`s just put his guide dog away & his white stick is broken 
perhaps he ought to do MOT discount for OOF members