Aye, slamming car doors does it for me to. We're way off topic now? 
Parking in gear
- Thread starter MattHarris19872016
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Parking in gear
I have nearly always lived on a steep hill. I therefore have always parked in gear. 1st while pointing uphill and reverse pointing downhill.
Over the years, there were several incidents at home where cars have rolled down the hill. One went straight across the main road at the bottom and into the fence opposite, but luckily nothing was coming along the main road at the time. Another was stopped by my dad's car.
Over the years, there were several incidents at home where cars have rolled down the hill. One went straight across the main road at the bottom and into the fence opposite, but luckily nothing was coming along the main road at the time. Another was stopped by my dad's car.
With the hills around me I always put the wheel into the kerb, into reverse gear and the handbrake fully extended.
If I had electronic braking Id be putting bricks under the wheels too
On the flat, the handbrake only will do
If I had electronic braking Id be putting bricks under the wheels too
On the flat, the handbrake only will do
decades of running "bangers- on a budget".. I've not done it any other way,
I know plenty of AUTO drivers who swear the only time the handbrake gets used is at it's MOT...
unfortunately the news items of modern auto incidents bear this out..
handbrake barely functions (just passed mot)
always leave it in gear, just opposite anything in front / behind.
always leave it in gear, just opposite anything in front / behind.
MattHarris19872016
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What is the best way you find to park in gear. Do you put the car in neutral, switch off and put in gear after switching off?
Depends on why it's being parked in gear, if a steep hill, I'll hold it on the brake, switch off, release clutch, then brake. If it's to stop handbrake sticking on when leaving a car for a while, I'll park in neutral, then engage a gear, but in that case I'll be parking on the flat anyway. Also use a choc.
I've discovered that my HDI engined Citroen(Ulysee) won't hold in gear on anything more than a slight slope, some kind of decompression valve in the engine?
Never got into the habit of depressing the clutch when starting, always foot on brake and select neutral. I guess too many years of driving hydraulic Citroens, where no pump pressure means no clutch...
I've discovered that my HDI engined Citroen(Ulysee) won't hold in gear on anything more than a slight slope, some kind of decompression valve in the engine?
Never got into the habit of depressing the clutch when starting, always foot on brake and select neutral. I guess too many years of driving hydraulic Citroens, where no pump pressure means no clutch...
Many engines these days don't seem to hold the car on hills. So a habit of many may well not prevent an issue.
If the rear brakes are drums, there is a technique to help the handbrake hold on hills. When braking a moving vehicle, pressure to the rear brakes is restricted, to prevent lockup. Once stopped, full pressure can be applied.
Stop the car normally. DO NOT apply the handbrake yet.
Now, press the footbrake hard. This will squeeze the rear brake shoes hard against the drums. You may hear them creak a little, confirming this.
With footbrake held hard, now apply the handbrake.
This technique uses the footbrake to push the shoes against the drums, by-passing any mechanical weaknesses in the design or operation of the handbrake mechanism. Let the footbrake do the work, and the handbrake just hold it there.
Small Fiats, esp. classic Panda, Seicento, and Corsa C are notorious for weak handbrakes. Using this technique I have safely parked all of those on some very steep hills.
afraid its full discs, not even heat related.
Whatever it is on then, should be fine. Just needs fixing, back to as new condition.
its a ford.
Tbf my dad has a mk2 focus the handbrake was terrible from day one. It finally failed the mot on it year 7 and the garage who repaired it did a far better job than ford managed in the factory.
Does the rear disc focus use seperate drums for the handbrake like the Mazda 3 does or just nip the discs with the pads?
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at 10 years old had it fixed for about 6 months I guess the handbrake cables stretched again.
And I refuse to look at my own breaks, I always have bits left over
MattHarris19872016
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I know some people park in 2nd on the flat and first or reverse on a hill. What is the reason/benefit parking in 2nd?
None I can see, you get the greatest mechanical advantage from first or reverse.
Some cars it's reccomended to avoid reverse because it's more likely to jump out of gear, or the layshaft is weaker.
MattHarris19872016
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When parking in gear in the snow would it be better to leave the car in 2nd gear rather than 1st like you would moving off?
No, see my reply above.
I wouldn't suggest pulling away in second either though.
If a car starts to slide in the snow, the gear will have no effect. With wheel locked, it will just slide anyway. Close to kerb, with wheel turned to touch would be more effective, as when leaning on the kerb it is unlikely to try to move unless pushed.
There's a mischievous thought, walk up or down a snowy or icy hill giving parked cars a push. Chaos. Can't run away though!
This was one of the first threads I followed when I started "lurking" around on the forum. I liked what I saw on the forum so registered in October last year. I've posted on a few other subjects and had very positive reaction and advice so thought I'd toss in my ha'penny worth on this subject.
I started driving, on private estate land, back in the '50s in my early teens. Tractors, - a red David Brown and a "little grey Fergie" 1930 Morris Minor, 1935 Morris 8, and the estate Austin pickup. None of these vehicles were well maintained - they were only driven on private land - so if you didn't leave them parked in gear they often weren't where you left them next time you went back! I got in the habit of leaving vehicles in 1st gear when parked. When I was then taught to drive on the road, my instructor, the redoubtable Mr Scott, was very keen on you always "waggling" the gear lever to check neutral was selected before starting up, so being in gear on start up has never been a problem for me.
When I later trained as a mechanic I learned how to properly adjust handbrakes so my opinion now is that there should be no need to leave the car in gear, just apply the handbrake. I agree with "Portland Bill" that the hand brake should be pulled up with the button depressed only releasing the button to allow it to engage with the pawl teeth when it is fully applied. ie. Don't "rake" it up over the teeth as they can suffer abnormally rapid wear. After you've applied it a wee pull up on the lever with no pressure applied to the button can act to reassure you that the pawl is properly engaged. Electric hand brakes? WHY? I really don't want to even think about them!
One of the reasons for leaving in gear is often given as extra security when parking on steep hills. The theory is that engine compression will stop the car moving. If you think about this for a minute it's obvious this can't work. No engine has perfectly sealing pistons so as the turning force on the crankshaft tries to force the piston up it's bore the resisting air will, albeit slowly, leak past the piston rings and, if you're unlucky, the valve seats, and the engine will turn. Turning the steering so that the tyre jams against the curb works well but may not be that good for the tyre on very steep hills. By the way, if you are going to leave it in gear, then I strongly agree that you should not engage a gear which which might cause the engine to turn backwards. Overhead cam drives use quite long chains or synchronous belts. The chances of introducing enough slack into this train by turning the engine backwards, especially with chain drives, to cause the chain to jump teeth on the sprockets is significant. So, if you're facing downhill engage 1st gear, if facing uphill it's got to be reverse. To this day I carry a set of wheel chocks in the boot for added stability if I have to change a wheel. I would deploy these for extra security if I had to leave the car for any length of time on a steep hill.
A few more thoughts before I leave you.
# Counting "clicks" is pointless as there are fine and course ratchets
# There may be a potential danger with leaving a "stop/start" equipment vehicle in gear. A malfunction might cause the starter to kick over the engine with disastrous results. I have a vague recollection of this being a problem with one of the early versions. My daily driver has stop/start (which I dislike) so I never leave it in gear.
# With regard to depressing the clutch pedal when starting, I have mixed feelings. I hear what people say about gearbox oil drag and that by depressing the clutch you loose that. I've never found much advantage in this except perhaps in really freezing weather and modern gear oil is now so "thin" that it is even less of a problem. But I do worry about the crankshaft thrust washers. Have a think about this. When you depress the clutch pedal the clutch release bearing pushes against the thrust face on the clutch diaphragm and compresses it. This diaphragm is a VERY powerful spring, put one flat on the ground and you won't compress it even if you jump up and down on it! The clutch is mounted on the flywheel of the engine which is itself bolted to the end of the crankshaft. So, when you push down on the clutch pedal and compress the clutch diaphragm you are applying a very significant axial force to the crankshaft. You are in effect, trying to push the crankshaft out of the front of the engine! What is resisting this? On most engines, A couple of small, half moon shaped, thrust washers! When the engine is running there is a good supply of oil from the crank journal to protect them but there is little oil for them until the oil pump is feeding oil after start up so I don't like to start an engine with my foot down on the clutch pedal! Triumph 2000's were particularly vulnerable and often turned up in the workshop with stalling problems due to so much end float on the crank that it was trying to mill it's way out of the front of the engine!. I'm well aware that the latest generation of vehicles now have a switch on the clutch pedal (my daily driver is one) which require the clutch to be depressed before the starter will operate so I assume this issue of thrust bearing lubrication has been addressed but so far no one at my dealer has been able to give me an informed explanation! A further discouragement for me to keep my foot off the clutch was that when I learned to drive clutch release bearings were carbon thrusts, no fancy ball races! Sitting with your foot down on the clutch pedal would lead, very quickly, to the demise of the thrust bearing!
Well, that's quite enough of me rambling on for tonight. The aliens are about to put in an appearance so I need to go to bed with my book!
Stay safe everyone
Jock
Thought I'd do a wee PS to last night's post. I was so tired last night that I only read a couple of pages of my book but at least I did get to learn that they are called the Amnion before I nodded off, dropped the book on the floor and woke myself up again! Wife told me to behave and go to sleep, so I did.
I was wakened this morning at about 6.00 am to the raucous noise of her snoring. Prodding a sleeping Joyce is about as dangerous as disturbing a nest of vipers! So I lay for some time thinking about the meaning of life etc and it occurred to me that poorly adjusted hand brakes/cables used to feature large in my time on the shop floor. - I too, Portland Bill, worked on BL/Rover vehicles. Did a couple of years in a large dealership which went to the wall then moved to a small, family, country garage which was good because although primarily BL the boss would take on almost anything which rolled onto the forecourt which meant you learnt about lots of different models and their problems. The last models I worked on in any volume was Montego/Maestro although I have some experience on the earlier "Honda clones". My particular passion was the Land Rovers, mostly series 2&3 which the local farmers ran and which none of the other lads wanted to do because they were so "clarty" with cow s**t and fertiliser residue (boy can that stuff give you a rash!).
Anyway, back to handbrakes. I'm wondering if when people talk of handbrake cables stretching, what they are actually experiencing are the results of an incorrectly adjusted cable? Most vehicles now have self adjusting brakes. The front discs take care of themselves but rear brakes, either disc or drum, often, but not exclusively, rely on the action of the hand brake being applied to ratchet up the pads or linings to compensate for lining wear. If the cable is too tightly adjusted the actuating mechanism will not be able to return far enough, when the handbrake is released, to engage the next "notch" on the adjusting mechanism. The result is the self adjuster stops adjusting and as the lining slowly wears the handbrake travel gets longer and longer hence the assumption that the cable is stretching! In my experience the inner, Bowden type, cable really doesn't stretch - it can corrode and snap though - but the outer cable sheath can and does degrade both with corrosion and the constant flexing it experiences. This can sometimes enable the outer cable to compress when the handbrake is applied which feels, at the lever, as if the cable is stretching! Some cables are nylon lined and this can degrade too so that the cable sticks when under tension and doesn't apply full force to the operating levers at the wheels! People don't take into account that handbrake cables need periodic renewal - they are used to renewing linings and pads and even, occassionally, calipers and cylinders but seldom think about cables. So, next time you are servicing the car, have a look at the operating levers at the wheel. With the handbrake lever inside the car in its fully released position the operating levers at the wheels should be just touching the return stops (it's normal to see a gap of maybe a half millimeter). On a drum brake system you will likely need to remove the drums to see this. If you think it's not right don't "fiddle" with it unless you really know what you're doing, defective brakes kill people! Get someone really competent to have a look.
There is another insidious effect here which people don't realise. OK, lets imagine your hand brake isn't working too well. It's pulling up too far and not holding on slopes as well as it used too. You know a bit about cars and you conclude the cable needs to have the "slack" taken up. What may well be going on is that either the self adjusters have siezed or the cable has already been adjusted too tight in the past and so stopping the self adjusters from working. - could be other things too though - anyway you decide to tighten up the cable adjusting nut. Great, that's given a brilliant feeling handbrake lever, its only coming up a few clicks now! Pity about the fact it's still not holding on hills though! If you have a look at the wheel levers now you will see that, even with the handbrake lever fully released, the wheel levers are a long way from the stops! Adjusting in this way is using the handbrake mechanism to take up the pad/lining wear, disabling the self adjusting mechanism and putting the wheel levers well "over centre" on their operating stroke so reducing their leverage on the brake mechanism and so giving you less clamping effort on the brake lining/pad and so a brake that doesn't hold very well. Specific cars have specific variations so investing in a Haynes, on line, or other workshop manual is a very worthwhile investment.
Then, after deciding to make porridge for my breakfast, I remembered an interesting incident I once attended with the breakdown wagon. What had happened was that the vehicle, a Marina automatic, had slid a few yards down a hill until it nudged it's nose against a wall. The owner was in the habit of leaving the handbrake off but putting the transmission in park. When you do this a pawl is engaged with the output shaft of the transmission effectively locking it so the wheels can't turn, can they? Oh yes they can! By locking the transmission you are effectively locking the differential crown wheel. The "spider" gears inside the diff cage are not locked so for the car to remain stationary both wheels must have good grip on the road. In this case the road, a farm road, was slimy with mud, moss a snow slush. The wheel nearest the verge lost its grip on the road surface so the other wheel was able to just rotate and allow the car to roll a couple of yards till it contacted the wall. The fact that this was a rear wheel drive with little weight in the back probably didn't help! If you want to see this effect you can observe it on your own car. You need to jack both the driven wheels clear of the road surface. BE VERY CAREFUL IT DOESN'T FALL OFF THE JACKS! Without the engine running, engage any gear. This will lock the gearbox output from turning. Now try turning one of the jacked up road wheels whilst you look at the other one. Gosh, it's turning backwards - that's the diff gears doing their thing! Now you can see that if one of the wheels has no grip the other wheel is free to turn. This same effect is true if you leave the car in gear with the handbrake off, assuming it hasn't just rolled away anyway because it overcame the compression! By the way our Land Rover recovery vehicle quickly pulled the Marina back up the hill and because it had "proper" bumpers there was no body damage! The owner decided to use the handbrake in future.
As a parting thought - what are concentric clutch slave cylinders all about? OK they do away with clutch release arms and so reduce manufacturing costs? But a hydraulic leak on the cylinder means a complete gearbox removal to fix!! What madness when compared to a half hour of quite stress free entertainment to change an external cylinder - bleeding time included!
Well, now that's all off my chest, I'm going to change the battery in my hearing aid which went flat about 10 minutes ago, and then, as it's stopped snowing for the first time in 3 days, start to shovel the snow away from the front door and path? Going to have to be careful opening the door though as it's drifted a good 18 inches up the door!
As always, stay safe everyone
Jock
I was wakened this morning at about 6.00 am to the raucous noise of her snoring. Prodding a sleeping Joyce is about as dangerous as disturbing a nest of vipers! So I lay for some time thinking about the meaning of life etc and it occurred to me that poorly adjusted hand brakes/cables used to feature large in my time on the shop floor. - I too, Portland Bill, worked on BL/Rover vehicles. Did a couple of years in a large dealership which went to the wall then moved to a small, family, country garage which was good because although primarily BL the boss would take on almost anything which rolled onto the forecourt which meant you learnt about lots of different models and their problems. The last models I worked on in any volume was Montego/Maestro although I have some experience on the earlier "Honda clones". My particular passion was the Land Rovers, mostly series 2&3 which the local farmers ran and which none of the other lads wanted to do because they were so "clarty" with cow s**t and fertiliser residue (boy can that stuff give you a rash!).
Anyway, back to handbrakes. I'm wondering if when people talk of handbrake cables stretching, what they are actually experiencing are the results of an incorrectly adjusted cable? Most vehicles now have self adjusting brakes. The front discs take care of themselves but rear brakes, either disc or drum, often, but not exclusively, rely on the action of the hand brake being applied to ratchet up the pads or linings to compensate for lining wear. If the cable is too tightly adjusted the actuating mechanism will not be able to return far enough, when the handbrake is released, to engage the next "notch" on the adjusting mechanism. The result is the self adjuster stops adjusting and as the lining slowly wears the handbrake travel gets longer and longer hence the assumption that the cable is stretching! In my experience the inner, Bowden type, cable really doesn't stretch - it can corrode and snap though - but the outer cable sheath can and does degrade both with corrosion and the constant flexing it experiences. This can sometimes enable the outer cable to compress when the handbrake is applied which feels, at the lever, as if the cable is stretching! Some cables are nylon lined and this can degrade too so that the cable sticks when under tension and doesn't apply full force to the operating levers at the wheels! People don't take into account that handbrake cables need periodic renewal - they are used to renewing linings and pads and even, occassionally, calipers and cylinders but seldom think about cables. So, next time you are servicing the car, have a look at the operating levers at the wheel. With the handbrake lever inside the car in its fully released position the operating levers at the wheels should be just touching the return stops (it's normal to see a gap of maybe a half millimeter). On a drum brake system you will likely need to remove the drums to see this. If you think it's not right don't "fiddle" with it unless you really know what you're doing, defective brakes kill people! Get someone really competent to have a look.
There is another insidious effect here which people don't realise. OK, lets imagine your hand brake isn't working too well. It's pulling up too far and not holding on slopes as well as it used too. You know a bit about cars and you conclude the cable needs to have the "slack" taken up. What may well be going on is that either the self adjusters have siezed or the cable has already been adjusted too tight in the past and so stopping the self adjusters from working. - could be other things too though - anyway you decide to tighten up the cable adjusting nut. Great, that's given a brilliant feeling handbrake lever, its only coming up a few clicks now! Pity about the fact it's still not holding on hills though! If you have a look at the wheel levers now you will see that, even with the handbrake lever fully released, the wheel levers are a long way from the stops! Adjusting in this way is using the handbrake mechanism to take up the pad/lining wear, disabling the self adjusting mechanism and putting the wheel levers well "over centre" on their operating stroke so reducing their leverage on the brake mechanism and so giving you less clamping effort on the brake lining/pad and so a brake that doesn't hold very well. Specific cars have specific variations so investing in a Haynes, on line, or other workshop manual is a very worthwhile investment.
Then, after deciding to make porridge for my breakfast, I remembered an interesting incident I once attended with the breakdown wagon. What had happened was that the vehicle, a Marina automatic, had slid a few yards down a hill until it nudged it's nose against a wall. The owner was in the habit of leaving the handbrake off but putting the transmission in park. When you do this a pawl is engaged with the output shaft of the transmission effectively locking it so the wheels can't turn, can they? Oh yes they can! By locking the transmission you are effectively locking the differential crown wheel. The "spider" gears inside the diff cage are not locked so for the car to remain stationary both wheels must have good grip on the road. In this case the road, a farm road, was slimy with mud, moss a snow slush. The wheel nearest the verge lost its grip on the road surface so the other wheel was able to just rotate and allow the car to roll a couple of yards till it contacted the wall. The fact that this was a rear wheel drive with little weight in the back probably didn't help! If you want to see this effect you can observe it on your own car. You need to jack both the driven wheels clear of the road surface. BE VERY CAREFUL IT DOESN'T FALL OFF THE JACKS! Without the engine running, engage any gear. This will lock the gearbox output from turning. Now try turning one of the jacked up road wheels whilst you look at the other one. Gosh, it's turning backwards - that's the diff gears doing their thing! Now you can see that if one of the wheels has no grip the other wheel is free to turn. This same effect is true if you leave the car in gear with the handbrake off, assuming it hasn't just rolled away anyway because it overcame the compression! By the way our Land Rover recovery vehicle quickly pulled the Marina back up the hill and because it had "proper" bumpers there was no body damage! The owner decided to use the handbrake in future.
As a parting thought - what are concentric clutch slave cylinders all about? OK they do away with clutch release arms and so reduce manufacturing costs? But a hydraulic leak on the cylinder means a complete gearbox removal to fix!! What madness when compared to a half hour of quite stress free entertainment to change an external cylinder - bleeding time included!
Well, now that's all off my chest, I'm going to change the battery in my hearing aid which went flat about 10 minutes ago, and then, as it's stopped snowing for the first time in 3 days, start to shovel the snow away from the front door and path? Going to have to be careful opening the door though as it's drifted a good 18 inches up the door!
As always, stay safe everyone
Jock
