Honda Jazz Handbrake Adjustment

Is it a rear disc with concentric drum brake for the parking brake? I dunno how Honda does it, but my BMW has adjusters for the shoes. And these must be set correctly *before* messing with the cable adjustments - rather than the other way round.

On the BMW, you can adjust the shoes without even removing the wheel - just by removing a wheel bolt. The adjuster is accessible through that hole. But other makes may well be different.

Too wet again to play today, but from what I remember the handbrake acts on the main pads via a lever of some descripton on the bottom of the caliper. Certainly no inner drum.

Reminds me of the CX which had completely separate pads, about 25 mm diameter, acting on the front disks.

A Citroen rolled into my car one night, the handbrake had been applied normally, but as it all cooled/hydraulic suspension sagged down, the handbrake released enough for the car to go off on its own.

One of the earliest production cars to have all round disks was the MkII Jaguar. The cable-operated handbrake activated separate callipers on the rear disks. As they cooled, the brake became less effective.

They were notorious for rolling away, and anyone who drove one regularly always left them in gear.

Chris

Happens on anything with handbrake pads clamping a disk - especially where they're on the front, since the disk gets hotter than the rear. It's just that for a long time Citroen were just about the only mainstream manufacturer to use disks all round, and one of the VERY few to use front handbrakes. They needed to use front handbrakes, because the wheelbase changed as the suspension sank.

Drum - the brake cools, the drum contracts, the handbrake grips tighter. Disk - the brake cools, the disk contracts, the handbrake slackens.

There was a recall on the Xantia for cars going walkies as the disk cooled - all that was done was the first couple of teeth on the handbrake lever were removed, so that you were "encouraged" to pull the lever on properly...

Sinking suspension should not alter handbrake tension with a standard sort of cable. I had assumed that the front handbrake was more to do with the maximum efficiency that could be obtained (ie the rear was too light) I seem to remember that was the reason on the Commer 15cwt vans, they are the only other thing I have encountered with front wheel handbrake.

The other problem with the Jag was the handbrake was on the right, meaning it was quite possible to disengage it accidentally as you got out of the driver's seat.

No, but if you leave it in gear (FWD) AND put the (rear) handbrake on hard, you're not going to allow either set of wheels to rotate to allow the wheelbase to change.

Simply demonstrated in any hydraulic Citroen, by sitting with your foot on the brakes and moving the height lever to flat. Lots of creaking and groaning, the front'll sink, but the back'll stay up - until you take your foot off the brake, at which point it'll go down rapidly.

OH, yes, I see what you mean, I had not considered that aspect, I thought you meant that the cable would de-tension, sorry. As to in gear and handbrake on (at each end) I expect that the engine would slowly turn with the constant pressure and everything would settle. I was a little surprised by my landrover slowly rolling away on a slope despite being in low first. (I did fix the handbrake eventually, in the mean time I parked against a kerb or used a chock)

Oddly, the very best handbrake I had on any relatively modern car was a Rover P6 with the swing caliper Girling brakes where the handbrake acted on the rear pads. So it is possible to design a good handbrake with discs.

the modern way (mondeo and others) is to add a gbfo spring between the hand brake lever and the cable, so the spring is always trying to pull further on the cable.

Potentially, yes. But an autobox in park wouldn't.