Handbrake problem solved

[Zoobeef]

My handbrake has always been crap and no amount of adjustment would make it any better. This year he wouldn't pass it on the MOT though so I did a full investigation.

First thing was to remove the little plate in the centre tunnel and slacken off the locknut and loosen the handbrake cable a little.

Then I removed the wheels, calipers, discs and finally the shoes.
Using some sand paper I cleaned the inside of the discs and made sure there was no lips. I also took apart the little adjuster made sure that was still moving smoothly.

While doing this I noticed what I think is my problem and may be quite common so I thought I'd post this.
This is where the cable meets the arm on the back of the hub.
 

What I found was at some point the cable must have stretched slightly and then the cable had slipped up the arm slightly towards the rubber boot where it goes in the hub. Only a mm or 2.
This meant when you pulled the handbrake on not only were you getting less mechanical effort but the bit I've marked in blue on this next picture was catching on the hub where I've marked blue. This meant that the handbrake was only partly on and any amount of pulling on the handbrake just put more tension in the cable.
 

So, I reassembled the shoes, and put the discs on. The adjusted the shoes until it stopped the disc turning then backed them off until there was only a very slight rubbing when turned (I left the calipers off for this as they make a noise when turning of their own)

Then, making sure both the cables were in the right place on the arms I took the slack out the cable through the access hole in the cabin. There was loads of slack to take up now, I kept adjusting until the arms lifted off their seats (green line in the next picture) then backed it off until they were seated again.
 

It is now incredible, I can pull up at a slope and the car remains stationary with little effort on the handbrake!

[mgbond]

Nice work. Maybe posted this in the wiki.

[Jarcy]

I had trouble with my handbrake.
Burn through one of the cables, so had to replace.
Afterwards, the other side didn't pull as well - local mechanic reckoned the 2 cables were now different lengths so recommended replacing the other side too.
Took it to Jetstream - Dave said just required a little adjustment.
It's now balanced and really effective. Maybe he followed your advice

[S B C]

Thanks for the excellent write up
However, maybe I'm being thick, but where is the correct position for the cable ends to sit on the arms to give maximum leverage? All the pictures seem to show the same position.

[Zoobeef]

Those photos (they are the same one) show the correct position. You can see on the arm that its a slightly lighter colour where the cable had been sitting closer to the hub.

[S B C]

Thanks. That makes sense. I'm sure 90% of Noble owners will be under their cars checking this out !