hand brake cable
Some pictures for you. As I thought, my hand brake guides and pads are mounted as you originally stated, not the way they are shown in the Somerford diagrams. There is definitely only one pair of these guides, mounted on the top of the tunnel, there is nothing underneath.
It's been working fine for 48 years, so don't worry about it! Put a drop of oil on the cables where they enter the guides every so often, and you'll be fine.
The other pictures show the handbrake mechanism at the drums with the hadnbrake full on. Note on a properly adjusted system (which mine is) there is not a lot of movement on the levers between fully off and fully on. The steps to follow are this (and apologies if you already know this)
1. Slacken the handbrake cables right off, and put the handbrake to the floor.
2. Adjust the rear brake adjusters up tight, then back them off until the drum can just spin freely. It helps to do this 2 or 3 times, pressing the brake pedal in between as well.
3. Now tighten up the handbrake cables so that the brakes just start to bind on the first notch. Now, the brakes should be fully on after 3 or 4 notches.
If you can't get the handbrake working right after this, you may need to check the lever mechanism - over time the holes and pivots can get elongated and this reduces the efficiency of the levers dramatically. new ones aren't expensive.
Finally, once set you should never need to touch the cables again, other than to lubricate them. You will, however, need to adjust the rear adjusters quite regularly (every 1000 miles or so) to take up wear.
Posted: May 06, 2011 07:11 AM