AdeF

Well thanks everyone for your help and advice. I tried everything and nothing seemed to do the trick. In the end I bought a new caliper and put it in this morning in the sunshine. All went suspiciously smoothly and when I pulled the handbrake - hey presto it was properly engaged. Test driven and all is fine. I think the handbrake mechanism may never have worked (we've only had the car for a year) on the passenger side - I say this because the handbrake lever now max's out on 6 clicks or so, whereas before it needed to be pulled right to the top - that's without me touching the handbrake locknut. I did notice that the driver side handbrake cable has some snapped strands at the caplier lever end which probably adds credence to the above. I've got a spare cable to replace this but it can wait for another day...... Now both sides are working as they should the stress on the cable will be reduced anyway. Once again thanks all. Ade

Thanks for the help and advice everyone. I've tried ratcheting in the mechanism using the handbrake handle and pumping the brake pedal after each 10 handbrake pulls. Thought that this may work but when I raised the car the rear wheel still spins freely. I personally think the internals are kaputt. The cable moves nice and easy and the pivot moves freely and is returned to the correct starting point by the spring. I think I'm just going to carry on regardless and use the handbrake as it is. On steep hills I'll just stick in in reverse/1st gear. Not ideal but the foot pedal brakes work fine and that's what really matters most I suppose. Thanks everyone.

Hello everyone. This is my very first post on this forum so please bear with me. I bought my 51 plate 2.3 Gal in Summer of last year and I've been really happy with it. For a fairly old car with three previous owners it has been relatively trouble free. It was it's first MOT last week and luckily it only failed on the rear brake pads. Phew.... I am fairly practical and replaced the pads. This is what I did (per wheel): 1) Turned handbrake off inside car. 2) Chocked wheels. Raised car on to stands and removed wheel 3) Opened up brake fluid reservoir 4) Undid the two caliper slider bolts. Sliders are nice and smooth - no stiction. 5) Slid caliper off and tied to shock spring 6) Removed old pads 7) Cleaned away any gunk 8) Opened bleed nipple 9) Used rewind tool to push piston back. It went back with no too much force. Had a lot of trouble getting the tool off though. 10) Slotted new pads in using stickers provided and a little copper grease. 11) Put everything back together. 12) A friend repeatedly pumped footpedal to reset cailper while I controlled the bleed nipple to remove any air bubbles. 13) check reservoir for levels - no problems Note: I didn't do anything with the handbrake mechanism (the bit attached to the caliper) as everything I'd read never mentioned it. The result: Both rear wheels work absolutely fine using the foot pedal. Test driven - all fine. The problem. The passenger side handbrake does not engage. The driver side is fine. Checked the following: a)The handbrake cable has not snapped. b)If I manually pull the rear handbrake cables I can lock the driver side rear wheel easily but not the passenger side. c)The mechanism moves its full distance of travel but the wheel still spins. Any ideas anyone?