General MOT Brake fail-Help?

[blackydog]

Hi all, firstly i must say i'm touched by concern for my mental health , thanks for that Bollie. I took my car for it's MOT with a very questionable handbrake, but admittedly it was improving as the new pads bedded into the new disks. Surprisingly it went straight through! and with no advisories. Relief, thought i would have to scrap it!!
As said previously i had removed the rear brake limiters as i believed they were limiting pressure to the rears too much. This was not commented on by the MOT station and it certainly seems to make the brakes more effective.
I'm not sure what the figures should be for balance front / rear but here are the EFFICIENCY readings from my MOT:-
FRONT 48%
REAR 27%
TOTAL FORCE 74%
Parking BRAKE 23%

Handbrake is still rubbish but I have had to adjust it again so something is happening. Now i have an MOT i intend to fit new Brembo disks / pads to the front, which should make the front / rear bias a litle higher.

 

[gar074]

Great news, blackydog.

Mine scraped through its MOT two weeks ago with an advisory on the handbrake, and I know it will need a complete overhaul of the rear brakes before next time, as adjusting the cable no longer makes any difference. The rear disks are the originals anyway, and could do with replacement as they're quite grooved/corroded - I was pleasantly surprised that they got through the MOT OK.

I'm going to research the alternatives and get the parts in, ready for a wet weekend when I won't want to be driving it!

 

[blackydog]

Be careful! i renewed all the rear brake components and it made things worse. Forgot to mention i also put some spacers on the cables to effectively make the cables shorter, and it still takes most of the adjustment.

 

[RightGuard]

To be honest, if you are going to overhaul the rear brakes, then you are going to want to do something similar to what HP said. Otherwise it is more or less a waste of time.

 

[bollie69]

Be careful! i renewed all the rear brake components and it made things worse. Forgot to mention i also put some spacers on the cables to effectively make the cables shorter, and it still takes most of the adjustment.

Why would that be? New components is a good thing no?

 

[RightGuard]

Why would that be? New components is a good thing no?

Well new components are a good thing, and they certainly do help, but I have also seen that there is hardly any benefit of new parts (For me just pads), and I can not speak for the callipers but from what I can see on mine they function just like a calliper should.

I even went whole hog and got nice ferrodo performance pads, and the discs are near new. Also, there was a lot of adjustment room on the handbrake and that hardly helped (PITA to adjust, seriously fine adjustment).

It seems that especially with the handbrake, you need more surface area of the pad pressing the disc, so new parts are certainly a benefit but bigger callipers would be the ideal. Especially when replacing the whole set-up of the rear brakes costing a trillion more than what you could potentially get the ideal callipers for.

 

[blackydog]

Theoretically yes, new is good but in my case pads took forever to bed into rear disks. Hence the removal of the rear limiters to improve "bite" at the rears.

 

[bollie69]

Those limiters are there in case of an emergency brake (esp when it's wet) to prevent the rear wheels from blocking.

Don't play with your life!

 

[blackydog]

As i mentioned earlier in this post, rear brakes are still no great shakes even with limiters removed. It probably brings them up to the standard of normal car brakes.
as per my MOT
FRONT 48%
REAR 27%
TOTAL FORCE 74%
Parking BRAKE 23%

Still only 27% efficient with limiters removed. In fact i have worryingly just noticed that my handbrake is almost as effective as my rear brakes, and the handbrake is pants.