Hi everyone,

Great forum and found some excellent info so sure someone has an answer to my problem.

Had the voyager for about 5 years and always struggle getting it through the MOT on the parking brake especially the offside. It looks like the system was designed by a monkey.

When engaged the offside doesn't hold as well as the near side. If I adjust it so the wheel just turns the hand brake sort of works (this is what I have done in the past to get it through the MOT).

If I adjust the handbrake cable at the lever such that it locks the wheel, when released the wheel binds.

It is if the cables are too long - and there would appear to be no adjustment on the offside cables - is there a fix for this other than bribing the MOT chappie.

Great car but let down by the monkey designed brakes.

 

You should not need to adjust the cable at the lever end - the cable should be self-adjusting. Service Manual Section 5 page 58 or so.....
QUOTE:
nects the front parking brake cable to the left rear and intermediate cable. The intermediate cable is connected to the right rear cable using a parking brake cable connector.
On vehicles equipped with rear drum brakes, the rear service brakes also act as the vehicle’s parking brakes.
Vehicles equipped with rear disc brakes use a small duo-servo brake assembly mounted to the each rear disc brake caliper adapter as the parking brake. The inside of the brake rotor (hat section of drum-in- hat style brake rotor) is used as the parking brake drum.
DESCRIPTION - EXPORT
The parking brake system on this vehicle features a hand-operated parking brake lever. The lever is located between the two front seats and requires a special front cable.
OPERATION
The automatic-adjusting feature in the foot oper- ated parking brake lever continuously applies mini- mal tension to the parking brake cables when the parking brake lever is in the released position to keep them in adjustment at all times. Due to this feature, the parking brake cables require no periodic adjustment.
When the parking brake lever is applied, the cables are pulled, thus applying the brake shoes (rear drum brakes) or parking brake shoes (rear disc brakes) at each rear wheel.
The brake shoes are mechanically operated by an internal lever and strut connected to the rear park- ing brake cables.
An equalizer bracket is used at the rear end of the front parking brake cable to distribute tension equally to each parking brake cable......
END QUOTE
For this to work properly would require that the rear brakes are correctly (and evenly) adjusted. Look at the manual first. May have to take the drum off to ensure PB parts are moving freely and that the shoes are properly self-centring in the drum. If I could only get a good apply when adjusted to that there was a bit of drag, I would re-assemble with drag, take for a decent test drive, then re-check. Good luck.

Munro
UK South Coast/New Forest.

 

Hi Munro,

many thanks for the reply but I have tried all of this. The issue is that although I can get the left wheel to operate correctly with the parking brake I cannot get the right wheel to.

I have to adjust the right brake so that it just about turns for the parking brake to be effective - but this fails the MOT due to 'binding'.

IF I adjust the cable at the lever I can get it work on parking brake but it will still bind when released.

I am thinking that the intermediate or right hand cable must have stretched.

Thanks anyway for your response.

 

If you can't get a quick adjustment on the cables, 9/10 its seized mechanical parts in the small drum-in-hat style brake [shoes are marked indicating which side they belong on] shoes / disk. Lubrication & maintenance over the years is usually between zero & poor. Busy fitters will change shoes and parts but never clean out the build up of brake dust / rust / salt that over the years often leads to seized parts, particularly the articulating cam [lever through the backplate]. I did mine recently and had to use 'heat' to free the lever and a good helping of copperslip to try to keep it free. Even when they are in perfect condition the parking brake is barely fit for purpose in terms of a UK MOT. The disk [stopping] brakes are not much better, for a vehicle of this weight they should be much much bigger.

- still we all love our GV's, best of luck !

 

Hi QinteQ,

Thanks for the reply; I had cleaned an lubricated the pertinent bits but its defeated me. Its in the garage for a professional opinion so I will update later what they think
I might edit the response if it proves to be my incompetence.

I was hoping someone knew of a 'turn buckle' type adjustment product I could use to replace the connector between the intermediate and RH rear cable, so it gave some ability to adjust both wheels evenly.

I guess it is what it is - poor design.

 

I 'borrowed' a fully equipped 'test station' with a 4 wheel rolling brake tester and still struggled to get the left & right balanced with each other by %