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[John Ball]

On the question of handbrakes, when I pull mine on when travelling very slowly (10 mph) I get an almighty "crack" sound on the nearside rear wheel. A local Vauxhall specialist said it was a characteristic of the car. What say you?

[unlucky alf]

id say why do you pull the handbrake when moving

[Marks DTM Calib]

On the question of handbrakes, when I pull mine on when travelling very slowly (10 mph) I get an almighty "crack" sound on the nearside rear wheel. A local Vauxhall specialist said it was a characteristic of the car. What say you?

Apply the handbrake lightly for a100 meters or so a few times.....

What happens is that due to the handbrake shoes never stopping a rolling car, the drum faces get a light covering of corrosion adn this results in snatching.

By doing the above a few times (it actualy says to do this in the handbook once a month or so), it stops this happening and keeps everything working nicely

[Marks DTM Calib]

i was always told shoes first til they just rub then adjust cable to get the desired amount of notches on handbrake.

Exactly...but you CANT set the shoes unless the cable is mega slack in the first place

hence, you MUST slaken the cable first!

This is true of all shoe setups and its not doing this on most cars that results in the auto adjusters not working!

[John Ball]

On the question of handbrakes, when I pull mine on when travelling very slowly (10 mph) I get an almighty "crack" sound on the nearside rear wheel. A local Vauxhall specialist said it was a characteristic of the car. What say you?

Apply the handbrake lightly for a100 meters or so a few times.....

What happens is that due to the handbrake shoes never stopping a rolling car, the drum faces get a light covering of corrosion adn this results in snatching.

By doing the above a few times (it actualy says to do this in the handbook once a month or so), it stops this happening and keeps everything working nicely

Many thanks for that Mark. Top Info. BTW I have been trying to contact you for sometime for a Tech 2 checkover.
John

[Marks DTM Calib]

On the question of handbrakes, when I pull mine on when travelling very slowly (10 mph) I get an almighty "crack" sound on the nearside rear wheel. A local Vauxhall specialist said it was a characteristic of the car. What say you?

Apply the handbrake lightly for a100 meters or so a few times.....

What happens is that due to the handbrake shoes never stopping a rolling car, the drum faces get a light covering of corrosion adn this results in snatching.

By doing the above a few times (it actualy says to do this in the handbook once a month or so), it stops this happening and keeps everything working nicely

Many thanks for that Mark. Top Info. BTW I have been trying to contact you for sometime for a Tech 2 checkover.
John

Yes, trying to firm up a day for you....

[Alex Wood]

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.

[John Ball]

On the question of handbrakes, when I pull mine on when travelling very slowly (10 mph) I get an almighty "crack" sound on the nearside rear wheel. A local Vauxhall specialist said it was a characteristic of the car. What say you?

Apply the handbrake lightly for a100 meters or so a few times.....

What happens is that due to the handbrake shoes never stopping a rolling car, the drum faces get a light covering of corrosion adn this results in snatching.

By doing the above a few times (it actualy says to do this in the handbook once a month or so), it stops this happening and keeps everything working nicely

Many thanks for that Mark. Top Info. BTW I have been trying to contact you for sometime for a Tech 2 checkover.
John

Yes, trying to firm up a day for you....

PM sent Mark.

[Marks DTM Calib]

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.

[pete.h]

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 if 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 !!

[Marks DTM Calib]

You would be amazed how much it affects it.....try bending the cable sheath a little next time and seeing how much slack is taken up!

[pete.h]

Come to think of it , on a lot of cars the handbrake binds on when we jack them up for MOT.
 Suppose it must have been interesting when cars had all cable brakes, with the same thing happening on all the wheels at once.
Pedal travel must have been a bit variable !!

[unlucky alf]

getting interesting this!, one thing i will say though is unlike other /most cars the shoes in the miggy only have 1 function whereas drum rears do both functions as in pedal & h/brake, but yes i like that point of driving with it slightly on it does make sense, never done it with my monzas but i guess i was lucky in those days

[Derek_in_Penzance]

Oh these handbrakes. It's such a faff it's no wonder they hardly ever work properly. People just can't be bothered!

Same with fuel filters. "Where's that then?" This is after having owned the offending car for ten years (it's just conked out due to fuel starvation).  

[Marks DTM Calib]

Oh these handbrakes. It's such a faff it's no wonder they hardly ever work properly. People just can't be bothered!

Same with fuel filters. "Where's that then?" This is after having owned the offending car for ten years (it's just conked out due to fuel starvation).  

As I always say to auto drivers....use it or loose it.

Brakes need servicing (sadly they rarely get that these days).....