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Hand brake adjustment

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Michael Oritt

Michael Oritt

Yoda
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Though I have followed the shop manual and set the rear brakes up hard and then adjusted the length of the hand brake cable my removing the clevis and screwing the forked terminal in, the handbrake simply will not set up hard enough to prevent the car from rolling on even a gradual slope. I suspect that the cable has simply become to "stretchy", to coin a word.

Moss sells the handbrake cable as a separate piece but I don't see how I am going to access the end that attaches to the lever actuator in the cockpit. Must I remove the propellor shaft--or worse--in order to remove and replace the cable on its front end?
 
I can't say on a 100, but on my 100-6, I didn't have to remove the propeller shaft. The grease in my cable had hardened such that the cable was ineffective. Better now.
 
John--

Did you have to remove the transmission tunnel or could you get at it from under the car?
 
Michael,

Had similar problem a couple years ago. The conventional way to tighten up the handbrake cable is to screw in the turnbuckle at the bellcrank on the axle housing. On my BJ8, the turnbuckle had been screwed-in to the point where the male-threaded part was at the end of possible adjustment; i.e. it was hitting the inside part of the turnbuckle (probably due to the cable stretching). I trimmed a quarter inch or so off the male part and was able to tighten up the cable enough to get a good handbrake.
 
Bob--

Perhaps the cable is not stretched but somehow kinked within its length as this morning when I did what you describe--shortening the length of the cable by turning the turnbuckle/forked terminal--I could no longer get it attached to the actuator arm, even with the brakes adjusted hard as the manual calls for. On examining the hand brake lever itself I see that there is some looseness, thus reducing the amount that the cable would be pulled, but it did not seem to be THAT loose. I did not have enough time to remove the passenger seats to get at the attaching bolts, and perhaps if I get the handle more firmly mounted that would result in increased cable travel. I'll give this a try tomorrow hopefully.

I am still not clear how the cable is replaced--is it done from under the car with the vtunnel off or must the actuator lever be removed?
 
IIRC, I got more adjustment by adding a couple of washers between the cable housing and where it goes into the bracket on the rear axle.
Also check inside the prop shaft tunnel to make sure the handbrake mount isn't broken. I made this brace to fix that problem. This would seem to address the accessibility issue.

handBrakeBrace.jpg
 
I had a similar problem on myBJ8.

I found a simple gadget that clips on the cable and when the screw is tightened it effectively shortens the cable,ths let me know it was stretched and I replaced it with new.

Lubricating all the moving parts of the hand brake assembly I used Coppa slip.
 
"Also check inside the prop shaft tunnel to make sure the handbrake mount isn't broken."

It appears this is a common problem. Mine had been broken for years, and I just around to re-welding it.
 
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