Hi, Can anyone tell me how i can adjust the handbreak cable on my fiat ulysse, At the moment it is 12 clicks to put handbreak on. I have MOT at the end of the month and i dont know it will fail on the handbreak or not. Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks

Before you adjust the handbrake cable you should check whether your rear brake pads need replacing. Also, jack up the rear of your car and remove the rear wheels so that you can check whether the handbrake levers on the calipers are moving freely and 'springing' back when the hand brake is in the 'off' position. If one of these levers is sticking, the automatic adjustment for the handbrake will not work and you will get a lot of free play at the handbrake lever inside your car.

If you do find a sticking caliper lever, spray it liberally with WD40, remove the cable from the lever and then work it up and down with mole grips until it is free. If you pull the lever down, it should spring back up when released.

I have just carried out the above procedure on my 03 Ulysse 2 and the handbrake movement was restored to normal without any adjustment to the cable length.

You can adjust the handbrake by climbing underneath the car on the O/S in front of the rear wheel. If you're slim you don't even have to jack the car up. You'll see the hand brake cables running just near the sill - where both rear cables join up one of them ends with a threaded rod held by a bracket. There's a nut on it, turn it with a 10mm spanner (or maybe 13) to tighten the cable. From my experience it's a relatively short time solution as the cable becomes slightly stretchy with time, so you'll have to do it more and more often until you run out of thread. Definitely worth doing though.

Good luck

sai2006 said:

Hi, Can anyone tell me how i can adjust the handbreak cable on my fiat ulysse, At the moment it is 12 clicks to put handbreak on. I have MOT at the end of the month and i dont know it will fail on the handbreak or not. Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks

Click to expand...

The official way (as prescribed by Citroen DocBackup) is:

Jack rear wheels clear of ground. Mark current position of nut on cable. Slacken nut at least 3 turns, so that cable is completely slack. With engine running press brake pedal HARD at least 15 times. Tighten nut to original position. Check that rear wheels are free to turn with handbrake off.

That's from memory as I have no access to

I've found the self adjuster aren't always that effective.
Easiest is to ensure the handbrake cable is slack by checking the arms on the back of the calipers are in the up position fully.
Remove the caliper (two bolts) and "unscrew" the piston bit by bit until replacing the caliper over the pads allows the disc to just turn ok.
Then adjust the 10mm nut on the cable that feeds the driver side wheel (on the long threaded rod) until you start to feel the rear wheels being gripped then back off the nut a few turns.
Pump the brake peddle a good few times and handbrake on and off and check the discs aren't sticking.
Mine feels really good after an adjustment.

are the caliper levers adjustable? There is a nut but dunno if this is simply a mounting strud/fixing for the lever or if it can be adjusted -- have a similar issue replaced both side cables and whilst it's better not perfect - on my Tempra rear disc handbrake was always rubbish until I took the calipers apart and found by replacing the shim (washer to you and me!) on 1 side with a slightly thicker shim the levers worked perfectly no more 'lean' when parking on a slope

Hi. I had a similar problem with my 2004 Fiat Ulysse.

The handbrake cable warning light came on while I was driving (to say that the handbrake was on). I found out that the brake cable was seized which I freed up with WD40. However the light has remained on ever since. Is there any other sensor (someone on the forum suggested adjusting the handbrake cable to fix this). I have checked the switch by disconnecting it (I think this would show if the switch is defective although I stand to be corrected).

I have now replaced the pads on all four wheels but the light is still on.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what is wrong?

By the way the brakes seem to work perfectly and as far as I can tell the antilock brakes also work.

Thanks