Technical A handbrake which works! (Guide)

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Technical A handbrake which works! (Guide)

circolo

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Mar 22, 2007
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Okay, I had a small handbrake problem on my 91 plate Uno 60's, where the passenger side rear wheel would almost hold, but the drivers side was only slightly holding. (Even on the the tightest setting for the cable, and highest I could pull the handbrake up).

I would advise anyone with the rear shoes & drum set up to not bother playing around with the pulley wheel on the cross member, or any other parts, and just replace as follows. (I spent a couple of days doing this, as I couldn't see any wear in the brake components).

Parts:
------

1 x Pack of rear shoes (axle set)
2 x Rear Drums (mine were corroded badly, and original from manufacture, with 70k miles on the clock)
2 x Rear brake cylinders
1 x Brake bleed kit
1 x Brake Fluid


Replacing the Rear Wheel Cylinders, Brake Shoes, Brake Drums

1. Get the car jacked up, and chock the front wheels.
2. Remove the rear wheel on the side you're working on, to reveal the front side of the brake drum.
3. Undo the two bolts holding the drum onto the hub. (One will have a peg, the other will be a normal bolt).
4. Remove the drum front from the hub. (This will be seized if not removed for a while before, so get to large flat blade screwdrivers, and lever the drum equally from both sides off the hub - use a hammer and tap away, as the vibration will help here).
5. Once the front of the drum is removed, it will reveal the hub face, and the shoe assembly behind.
6. Using a brace bar, or an extenstion bar, you now need to remove the centre staked nut, in order to remove the hub from the stub. It will be tight, but with extra leverage, you should be able to remove this.
7. Once the nut is removed, carefully pull the hub from the stub. This need to be equal from all sides, otherwise it won't come off.
8. With the hub removed, you can now fullly see the brake shoes and assembly.
9. Check the cylinder (the dual piston unit at the top of the drum face), it's likely it will be showing signs of wear, and you may see fluid leaking from the rubber seal. This may look dangerous, but because the Uno has a dual circuit system, the fronts won't be affected by this.
10. If they look okay, then you can leave them. But a new Cylinder is £3, I'd suggest while you have the brakes apart you can do this, you'll need to remove the old brake shoes first, so follow step 18., then go back to 11. to renew the Cylinders.

Rear Cylinder Renewal
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11. From the rear of the brake drum, undo the two small bolts holding the cylinder. Don't fully remove them yet.
12. Now with a closed head spanner (c-type spanner), undo the rigid brake hose connection from the cylinder. There will be some brake fluid loss here, so get a cup and cloth under the axle to catch as much as you can.
13. With the rigid brake line detached from the cylinder, continue to undo and remove the two retaining bolts.
14. Remove the Cylinder from the brake drum back plate.
15. Get your new Cylinder, and partially fit the new unit in place of the old one, don't fully tighten the two rear retaining bolts.
16. Fit the rigid brake hose into the new cylinder, and tighten fully. Look out for any leaks, and make sure it's tight to seal.
17. Fully tighten the retaining bolts for the new Cylinder.

Rear Brake Shoes Renewal
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18. To remove the original shoes, ease out the spring clips from the leading and trailing shoe. Its easiest to use a wide flat blade screw driver and gently push down and out from the peg.
19. Remove the pegs for the clips and keep them safely with the clips you pushed out.
20. With a flat blade screw driver, lever out the right hand (trailing) shoe. Be careful as the load springs will snap it out quite sharply, so brace the shoe as you do this.
21. Remove the top and bottom load springs, make sure you remember which one was from the top and which one was from the bottom!
22. Remove the left hand (leading shoe).
23. Replace with a new left hand leading shoe, and replace the peg and clip, so that it is secure.
24. Attach the bottom load spring to the secured shoe, and then attach the other end of the spring to the right hand shoe, as you offer it up. You need to clip the lower edge under the stay on the drum rear, and then carefully push the shoe over the peg in the drum, until it's home. You
need to push the piston in on the Cylinder to accomodate the shoe edge.
25. Be careful that the unsecured shoe doesn't snap back out, as there is a lot of tension on the shoe now. Put the peg in behind the drum rear, and re-attach the clip through the shoe to secure it. Now you can release the tension on the shoe, as it's securely held.
26. With a set of "mole grips", put the top spring into the left hand shoe, and with a little strength, pull the spring across and into the eye on the right hand shoe.

Rear Brake Drum Renewal
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27. You'll almost certainly need to adjust the handbrake cable before replacing the drum against new shoes, as the pad material on the shoes is much thicker, and the drums will have no wear at all.
28. With the car secure get underneath, and undo the double nut lock on the handbrake cable, then loosen as far as you can, without letting the nut come off the thread.
29. Working at the axle side again, the shoes will need to be tapped inwards on there self adjusters. Either use a hammer, and screwdriver, and tap inwards on the metal edges of the shoes, or use a rubber mallet and tap on the pad of the shoe inwards.
30. The shoes will only tap inwards so far, but by which point the drum will fit over them, without rubbing.
31. Offer the drum up to see if it fits, if it does, you now need to refit the hub back onto the axle stub.
32. Push the hub over the axle stub, and tab gently either side until home, then tighten the staked nut until the stake point matches the staked mark on the axle stub.
33. Now gently slide the new drum onto the hub and over the new shoes. If there's any resistance against the shoe edges, tap them until the drum fits.
34. Now refit the two retaining bolts into the drum face, and hub. (One pegged, and one standard)
35. Now refit the wheel and take the car off the jack.

Re-tightening the handbrake and bleeding the brakes.

36. Assuming you have done the other side, you'll now need to bleed the brakes, to remove any air in the system, and re-tighten the handbrake.

37. Chock the front wheels, so that the car cannot move.
38. Get the jack dead centre on the rear beam, and jack the car up so that there is weight on the wheels from the car, but so that the wheels are off the ground, and free to spin.
39. Remove both road wheels.
40. With a suitable "one-man" brake bleed kit, bleed the brakes at the back from the bleed nipple on the cylinders.
41. Do one side at a time, and once all air bubbles have cleared, tighten the bleed nipple and do the other side.
42. Replace the road wheels, after the brakes are fully bled.
43. Working underneath from the drivers side, you can tighten the handbrake cable, and still spin the wheel to see if it starts to catch.
44. You need it set the handbrake something like: 0 Clicks up, wheels move freely, 1 click up wheels move, but you can just feel a slight resistance, 2 Clicks up the wheels move, but need to be pushed around with some effort, 3 Clicks up, the wheels should be locked, (you may just be able to move them if you really force them with both hands, 4 Clicks up the wheels won't move.

And that's it!

And I would recommend this to anyone who has been having rear brake problems with their handbrake, as now the old girl will hold on any hill!

:)
 
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