Passenger Side Hand Brake Not Engaging

[AdeF]

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?

[alan_131]

Did mine a couple of years back - IIRC I did exactly the same as you, no problems. I'm afraid I don't have a solution, you need one of the experts for that, but I do have a couple of questions that might help clarify things a tiny bit....

 

Could the handbrake have been U/S on that wheel before the MOT? Don't know if you saw the tester check the brakes, or if the MOT flagged up uneven/ineffective handbrake?

 

When you apply the handbrake or pull the cable does the brake come on at all, even though it doesn't grip the disc?

 

I've read of problems with corrosion gunging things up, and others where the mechanism's been damaged, and found on the web a site that talked of some calipers (not neccessarily fitted on a Galaxy though) that needed the piston winding out half a turn to reset the self adjuster - I've never read anything like that in anything specific to a galaxy) but also somebody who had a similar sounding problem fixed - the operating lever on the caliper wasn't moving far enough to work the self-adjuster part - I think due to it not returning to the right start point, rather than not going far enough when pulled by the cable if you see what I mean. That was on the forum somewhere I think...

 

 

 

 

Good luck!

Edited May 11, 2012 by alan_131

[alan_131]

Afterthoughts - does anybody know how much the cable adjusts each time you use the handbrake? Just wondering how often you need to operate it to go from wound right in to normal "new pad" position?

 

Anybody had any luck with WD40 or similar on the pivot etc? ....

[chrispb123456]

Common problem for the handbrake adjuster not working is the caliper arm is not going back to the fully off position

 

In the picture of a MK3 caliper (MK2 similar) make sure the lever (green arrow) is contacting the stop peg(red arrow) with handbrake off.

The cable could be slightly seized causing it not to return completly

there should be a spring to pull the arm back, make sure this is present, try disconnecting the cable from the caliper, the caliper arm may be seized inside

Edited May 11, 2012 by chrispb123456

[seatkid]

Afterthoughts - does anybody know how much the cable adjusts each time you use the handbrake? Just wondering how often you need to operate it to go from wound right in to normal "new pad" position?

 

Anybody had any luck with WD40 or similar on the pivot etc? ....

 

You need to apply /release handbrake several times to ratchet in the parking mech. I have used penetrating oil and WD 40 to free a sticky pivot, just make sure to get behind the rubber protective cover on the pivot to allow the oil to flow in. The parking mech is prone to severe rusting internally causing it to stick or not adjust. I saw pics of one stripped down some time back on a German website.

[AdeF]

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.

[cyborg]

When you wound back the caliper, you mentioned that you had trouble removing screw back tool.Sounds like you have overtightened the mechanical internal pistion screw on the caliper.The handbrake function is designed to be a mechanical safety net should you pop a leak on brakes.

 

Brake failure happen to me once on an old mondeo was i grateful for a handbrake ,I wouldn't like to try it in a 2 ton galaxy with family on board .

 

Your best bet is replace caliper .or remove piston and correct but you would still need a brake rebuild kit........ because its also likely the piston is corroded anyway .so replace there's some things you need to spend money on this is one of them .

 

Safe motoring

Edited May 12, 2012 by cyborg

[seatkid]

As suggested earlier and a last effort, why not remove the caliper/pads and wind the piston out a few turns,ratchet the handbrake 3 or 4 times (you should be able to observe if the piston moves), then wind back in taking care to leave at say one turn to spare.

[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