• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Hand Brake Adjustment

Share this page

M

mikeamondo

Jedi Hopeful
Offline
Hi folks... can someone give me a quick description of how to adjust the hand brake? My lever pull all the way up with no resistance. At the very top of the travel, with the lever almost straight up and down, I can feel the brake engage a bit. I'm thinking it needs adjusting.

I've installed all new brakes on the rear, adjusted the new shoes appropriately, and at least with the car on jack stands, the rear brakes seem to function correctly.

On my hand brake assembly, I see the cable come into a small bracket just aft of the rear axle. There is nut outside the bracket, where the cable comes in from the front of the car, and a nut inside the bracket. Problem is, I don't know which one to tighten / loosen etc. in order to try and fix the issue. Both can be turned, so that good. I can see that once it's correct, they should tighten against each other to lock in place.... correct? When I put the lever down and then engage it just a smidge, there is not a bunch of slack in the line... I know I may have other issues.... but how is that bracket supposed to work?

Sorry if this has been covered many times... I looked and couldn't really find a good description.

Thanks!
Mike
 
Have you checked the adjustment of your rear brake shoes? Mine were too far back from the drum. When I adjusted them, the handbrake worked a lot better, too.
 
I'm going to double check the adjustment of the rear brakes... Especially after reading the article at the link provided by Nelson above... thanks for that site, by the way... good stuff! I still don't have a good description of how to use that adjuster. I guess I'm just a little slow on this... I know works like bicycle brake cables, but that doesn't really help since I've never understood those little voodoo devices either.

I'm thinking that to 'tighten' the brake, I need to shorten the amount of threaded cable end sticking into the bracket... moving the nut inside the bracket closer to the end of the threads. I'll experiment with it tomorrow....
 
Also... when I adjust the brakes. Am I turning them out until they click? Mine never came to a hard stop... just a point where they click. Then backing them off a quarter turn or so? And then, of course turning the wheel to make sure it's turning freely.... Is that procedure correct?
 
The way to adjust drum brakes is tighten until you cannot turn the wheel then back off just a little, maybe leaving a very slight occasional scraping sound when turning the wheel. The caution here is that you need to ensure both shoes are in solid contact when you can't turn the wheel so try a little more effort on the adjuster to be sure. For the hand brake, you need to effectively shorten the cable. that is, adjust both nuts away from the end of the cable.
 
However over time the cable will stretch and the lever will still be straight up even when the cable is adjusted to full tight. I had this on my 60 BE, after almost 60 years it had stretched to the point where tit was at the end of its adjustment.
I had to replace the cable which is a real pain but now the lever is maybe 45 degreed and holds very tight.
 
Fixed my handbrake and got my brakes adjusted properly all in one go! This link here.... https://spriteparts.com.au/tech/handbrake.html ... this guy's description of the adjustment process was spot on.... My handbrake was not working properly because I had failed to adjust the new rear brakes properly.

I unhooked the clevis pin from the handbrake cable, thus freeing the hand brake so it would not interfere in the adjustment process. Then I cranked the adjusters out until I could not turn the wheels. The first time I only turned them out until I had some resistance.... Nope... need to crank them out until you can't turn the wheel at all. And.... trying to turn the wheel with one hand whilst lying under the car is NOT the same as turning it standing beside the car.... Once tightened down that far, then back off a couple notches until it turns freely with a smidge of scraping sound on the brakes. Then.... adjust the cable nuts until the clevis lines up and you can put the pin back into the hole.

After that, not only does the handbrake engage at a lovely 45 degree angle, and hold the car on a steep ramp... but the brakes feel MUCH better than my short test drive right after the brake job. I could only test in my parking lot this evening, due to rain, but I'll have it on the road soon enough...

Thanks for the continued help!

Mike
 
Oh... and by the way... my reference to 'clicks' while turning the adjusters... I'm guessing that's what other's have called 'notches'. As it turns, there is a slight releasing of back pressure on the wrench every revolution or so... I called this a click... erroneously... no click really.... I backed of about 4 notches total to get the wheel turning freely after I cranked them down...
 
Congratulations. You are becoming a proper LBC owner.
 
And with our help you'll be able to rebuild the Front End as well. You've already demonstrated Mechanical Aptitude, Problem Solving Ability, and can follow direction. Since you've been successful so far, I'm fairly certain you can undertake the Front End Rebuild.
 
mikeamondo said:
Oh... and by the way... my reference to 'clicks' while turning the adjusters... I'm guessing that's what other's have called 'notches'. As it turns, there is a slight releasing of back pressure on the wrench every revolution or so... I called this a click... erroneously... no click really.... I backed of about 4 notches total to get the wheel turning freely after I cranked them down...
Click to expand...
Yes, the adjuster's cone is actually a square shape with the corners rounded off so you will feel a 'notchiness' . You don't really want to end up with the blocks on the high spots.
 
Back
Top