hydraulic handbrake

[993phill]

i am slowly converting a tuscan challenge car to a two seater track day and road car and have fitted a hydraulic handbrake {checked with my mot station and they said that would be fine}as the system was split into frront a back brakes on different cylinders and brake lines
but now there is some talk that it may not be acceptable
how has anyone else put a handbrake on one of these cars
thanks for any info

[teamHOLDENracing]

Steve Howard fitted a small brake disc to the prop shaft/diff flange with a small calliper. I think it was cable operated and so didn't interfere with the hyraulic system at all.

I think this is the arrangement he fitted to Grant Crouch's Tuscan.

[GreenV8S]

My understanding is that there is an explicit requirement for the car to have a working mechanical brake. Line locks and hydraulic hand brakes are not sufficient. Sometimes when you have a hydraulic brake and a mechanical brake it is hard to prove which one is doing the work, and people have used this in the past to get SVAs and MOTs on cars with handbrakes that look OK at first glance but are purely decorative. Given that the handbrake can be quite important in an emergency, it's not something that I'd be inclined to try to cheat on.

[teamHOLDENracing]

To explain further, a small disc was machined to fit between diff flange and prop shaft. This then had a very small cable operated calliper acting as a hand brake. A very neat solution.

[350Matt]

Pete's correct its a legal requirement to have a mechanical brake on at least 1 pair of wheels as hydraulics bleed down over time, so if you left it on a hill with your hydraulic handbrake on , it may not be there when you came back .....

Matt

[magpies]

I've fitted a hydraulic cylinder to the handbrake and adjusted the cables to operate if the hydraulics leak