Handbrake needs tightening

minibbb

Member
 Eastbourne
The handbrake needs tightening up on my coupe as the car rolls unless I crank it up super high. Is this any easy job, I.e a cable that needs adjustment?
 
minibbb said:
The handbrake needs tightening up on my coupe as the car rolls unless I crank it up super high. Is this any easy job, I.e a cable that needs adjustment?

hI,

have a look at this link, it's from a 330 but it's similar !!....
http://www.csfrancis.net/BMW/pbdiy.pdf
 
Actually I think you may find that totally useless as a guide as it may be like this:

http://tis.spaghetticoder.org/s/view.pl?1/07/89/89

Special tool needed and took it to BMW dealer to do as my indy wouldn't do it because my local garage had fitted new discs and pads all round but did not have the special tool 32 1 030

My Indy also lost any further business as he basically left me in the shite after first saying he would do the adjustment
 
fixit man, while the anchorage is similar to a 330, that's not where you adjust a Zed. To access that anchorage, you do have to drop the prop shaft as suggested in scousefly's link. But that's not where you adjust a Zed's handbrake. I've posted about this before.
 
bcworkz said:
fixit man, while the anchorage is similar to a 330, that's not where you adjust a Zed. To access that anchorage, you do have to drop the prop shaft as suggested in scousefly's link. But that's not where you adjust a Zed's handbrake. I've posted about this before.

Noted...never done it actually, but I've often adjusted handbrake systems like BMW and Mercedes that have the adjuster in the brake drum...thought the write up was good for that and to be honest it's usually enough to just adjust the adjuster in the drum, as for the cables part in the write up, all I can say is "oops" !

I'm going to change my rear discs and handbrake shoes soon...do you think with a bit of luck I'd be able to get the discs off just by backing off the adjuster ?
 
Save adjusting the handbrake until you swap the discs. Chance are if it's out of adjustment they will come off anyway. Once you fit the new discs there drive 100m with the handbrake on to bed in then adjust them up through the bolt hole.

Dead easy if fiddly and I've done it a couple of times without ever needing to touch cables.
 
minibbb said:
The handbrake needs tightening up on my coupe as the car rolls unless I crank it up super high. Is this any easy job, I.e a cable that needs adjustment?

I have the same issue and was going to get it tightened but someone I know with an ///M reackons that his is the same and I should just get used to pulling it harder.
 
Can I just say something to deflect any confusion? The link I provided is not the clearest but you DO NOT have to drop the prop shaft to do the adjustment. The tool creates slack in the cable and then the adjust ment is done via the little clicky wheel on the back brakes. You usually get it to about 10 clicks then back off slightly then you release the tension via the tool......Please do not drop the propshaft :thumbsup:
 
cj10jeeper said:
Save adjusting the handbrake until you swap the discs. Chance are if it's out of adjustment they will come off anyway. Once you fit the new discs there drive 100m with the handbrake on to bed in then adjust them up through the bolt hole.

Dead easy if fiddly and I've done it a couple of times without ever needing to touch cables.


sounds good to me thanks :D
 
Count how many clicks of the brake lever until it is fully engaged. If you count 10 or less, adjustment is not needed. 10 clicks is quite high, but still within spec. One could always adjust a bit if within spec bothers them. This is a different 10 clicks than scousefly's 10 adjuster clicks. To correctly adjust the handbrake, you do need the special tool or something similar, but I see no problem just tightening the adjuster a few notches without faffing with the special tool and self adjuster spring.

My problem is I can never remember which way to turn the adjuster wheel to tighten. Can someone refresh my memory?
 
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