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Focus Handbrake

2001 Focus 2.0 ESP 3 door 50k miles. Just finished putting new pads on the nearside rear after finding the handbrake was doing three fifths of sod all on that side and after whipping the wheel off the pads were down to the bone anyway so they wanted changing regardless. Anyway before getting the offside pads fitted I've pumped the pedal a couple of times to set the caliper and still no bleedin' handbrake at all on the nearside. Caliper seems to be fine, cable quadrant moves ok and the piston wound back in fairly easily. Guess the cable must be seized. Seems to be fine on the other side though.

Common issue with these things perhaps? Maybe because of lack of use. It barely gets 3k miles a year. Anything else to check or shall I bite the bullet and buy a set of cables? Seems like too much work to take the old one off and examine it without a new one ready to fit back.

Reply to
Dave Baker
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Just check the piston moves out when you operate the cable quadrant, I've got a nagging memory of it being possible to unscrew it too far.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

Now I'm working on the offside brake it's pretty clear what was wrong on the nearside. The offside inner cable moves in and out of the outer much more freely, well in fact by comparison I think the nearside didn't move at all which was probably why it was such a c*ut to get it off and then back onto the quadrant. Never having done one before I didn't know how much movement to expect of course. New cable time then which apparently means dropping the exhaust and removing the bloody heatshields. God I hate working on cars.

Reply to
Dave Baker

spraying the metal exterior bits of hand brake cables with chain grease at every service seems to keep them going indefinitely.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

It is a pig and yes it does happen sadly. You may get away with disconnecting the brake end and flexing the armored bit about - it sometimes frees up the jam and then an injection of oil sorts it out.

Reply to
Chris Street

Would one of those old motorbike cable lubricators work? They sort of clamp over one end of the outer making a seal via a rubber compression gland. You then fill the body with oil, fit the end and apply air pressure

- usually with a bicycle tyre pump. Which forces the oil into the cable.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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