Rear Brakes

[06190]

Can you help. I have put my Mk 2 Stag in for its MOT 3 times and it keeps failing on the hand brake holding force, have replaced the shoes, cylinders, hand brake cable and self ajusters. still will not apply sufficent force to pass the MOT. The strange thing is if you try to reverse the car with the hand brake applied it works fine and the car stalls, but going forward very little holding force.

Your help would be much appreciated even the garage is at a loss

Many thanks
Chris

[DJT]

Chris,
The handbrake on the Stag is much maligned, but problems are usually down to wrong technique for adjustment. In 18 years I have never had problems getting the handbrake to pass the MOT other than when I had a weepy rear cylinder.
The correct technique is:
Disconnect handbrake cables from both rear wheels.
Pull the rear wheel handbrake levers into the fully off position (i.e. towards the rear of the car) and tie in this position.
Press down firmly several times on the brake pedal to take up any slack in the adjusters.
Re-attatch the handbrake cables, adjusting as necessary.
All the above assumes that the self-adjusters are free and working, and that the lever between the shoes inside each drum is free to pivot at its midpoint. They sometime seize.
Dave

[stag_ste]

Does the service brake work OK when tested for the MOT ?

[DJT]

Further to my reply above, yesterday I had to service the rear brakes on my current Stag due to leaky slave cylinder and contaminated shoes. After reassembling and adjusting as above, I had to slacken the handbrake cable by 1" as a previous 'mechanic' had adjusted the handbrake up by tightening the cable, rather than by doing it correctly.
Dave