If you can see the sector where the handbrake from the lever connects to the cable that go to the wheels without lifting the vehicle try this.
Obvious safety such as chocks, blocks etc.
Get someone inside to pull the handbrake on and off and see if the swivel moves. Probably it will not, so possible problems are:
Cable from the handbrake to swivel is rusted up. Had this and not too difficult to change the cable if you can raise the van high enough to get underneath.
The swivel has siezed. This can happen if the van has been left with the handbrake on for some time. Again fiddly as all cables really need to be disconnected but take the swivel off and give it a good clean and grease.
One of both cables from the swivel to the wheel(s) is siezed.
It appears there are two types of cable used to the rear wheels:
1. Single cable to one wheel (obviously two seperate short cables).
2. One cable going between the wheels and the middle going to the swivel.
The cables to the rear wheels are difficult but not impossible to change, BUT if you are not familar with how they are fitted, I would recommend going to a garage to get them changed, but. if you want to try yourself the process is:
Rear wheel off. would recommend doing only one side at a time.
Disconnect handbrake cables from the sector. You will have to back off the adjuster on the sector to do this.
Caliper off. Two bolts, one top, other bottom.
Caliper holder off. This is where you might run into problems as they are usually very tight and difficult to get a long bar onto
Back off the adjuster for the handbrake shoes. You MUST do this or it will be difficult to take the disc/drum off without doing damage to the shoe holders. Look around on this site or Google Ducato handbrake adjustment on how to get to these adjusters.
Now take off the disc/handbrake drum. Note, there are two bolts holding then on which are very easy to 'round off' the heads. Good chance disc/drum will be very tight. Try to pull straight off. Any sideways movement and there is a very good chance you will catch the brake shoes onto the edge of the drum, and if you pull hard enough, break or pull out the shoe holders in the rear of the brake cover.
Once the drum is off you can see how the cable is fitted and reasonably easy to change.
As it is such a pain to do, it might be worth replacing the handbrake shoes even if they look to be in good condition.
When you come re-fitting, you must re-set the handbrake shoe to drum gap of handbrake adjustment. Pretty straightforward to do, but worth getting everything back together and go for a drive and do a few slops using th handrake which will make sure the shoes are sitting correctly then double checking the drum shoe gap is good before you do any final handbrake rise adjustments.
Done nearly all of these jobs on a 2007 motorhome in our drive so can be done if you have the time and patience and basic tools.
