Dodgy handbrake

[*lebowski*]

Anyone else having to constantly get their handbrake adjusted?

I have an 05 SV6 auto and it's getting to the point where I'm afraid to park it on a slope. I put it in park, pull the handbrake on, turn off the engine & take my foot of the brake and it does the usual lurch "n" squeak. It's really disconcerting. I had it adjusted on my last service and was good for about 2 days then basically back to normal. The handbrake handle clicks more and gets more vertical each time. Could my cable be stretched too much beyond repair? Any quick fixes or will I need to take the rear wheels off and give it a good adjustment?

[savage1987]

All commodores have this problem. I also need a solution, for all our commodores:

VN V6 Lexcen
VR SS
VT Acclaim V6
VY One Tonner V6

[andyman]

something not right there pal, get it checked out for warranty, ive adjusted mine so it comes up about 5-6 clicks

[Torquative]

yeh proper adjustment is at the rear wheels, if you keep screwing in the nut at the handbrake it can cause stretching of the cable till snap ... so Im told by a "competant Holden technician"

Ok the lurch n squeak is acctually normal and the best way to park on a slope. Thats the auto gearbox locking into the "parking pawl" so theres no chance of drive at the rear wheels. This is why after it rolls forward, and you take it out of park to drive off next time round, sometimes you hear a bit of a crunch sound or the car jerks - this is the mechanism releasing from the metal plate.

The handbrake is a secondary brake to this, so should the parking pawl (a smal piece of metal) snap one day you have some sort of pressure applied to the rear discs to stop the car rolling down the hill, thus why yanks call it the "emergency brake".

If your parking on a hill on a regular basis I'd reccomend having the handbrake adjusted at the rear wheel so you can use that to take stress off the parking pawl, and so you know if the pawl ever snapped your car wont drive itself!

[savage1987]

Can someone tell me how to adjust the handbrake properly at the rears? I'll do it to all of ours if I could only find out how

[andyman]

Can someone tell me how to adjust the handbrake properly at the rears? I'll do it to all of ours if I could only find out how

jack the car up by the diff and use something like a chunk of wood or car stands under the chasis and chock the front wheels

remove the back wheels,

release the handbrake and put the transmission in neutral,

on the hub of the disc there is a rubber grommet, pull it out,

grap a torch looking down into the hole move the disc around untill you see a toothed wheel, located at the bottom and i think slightly to the right,

now heres the hard part, our beloved commodores love to seize up the rollers on the handbrake adjustment, so if you can move the wheel by flicking it upwards with a flatbladed screw driver your fine, if not the wheel is seized and ill give directions at the end here,

SEE WARNING BELOW!!, this part here needs to be treated delicatly as problems can occur, grab your flat bladed screw driver and move the wheel one click at a time, than spin the disc and listen for a slight shimming noise, this mean its adjusted up enough and proceed to adjust the other side in the same way, after you have done that pull the handbrake up and see if it is less than 7-8 clicks if it is your done and put your wheels back on,
if its more than 7-8 adjust it some more,


ok now if your adjustment wheels has seized you may be lucky, grab your flat bladed screw driver and give it a hit with a hammer on the adjustment wheel if it releases your lucky and follow the parragragh above, if not you will have to remove the disc to do this, remove the caliper by the 2 bolts and secure the caliper so no pressure is on the brake lines, there may be a screw holding the disc on remove this and pull the disc outwards and off, have a go with the hammer and screw driver on the wheel to free it, when you do you can either adjust the handbrake there out replace the disc and do it that way, when tightening up the caliper bolts make sure you use loctite on them,




***BIG WARNING*** do not over adjust the handbrake those 2 extra clicks can quite easily lock up the disc and you wont be able to drive the car and it can be very difficult the release the mechanism, i have done it (on a BF Falcon) and it took hours to release it and also damaged a few parts along the way



i quickly wrote up this so forgive me for the poor grammer and spelling

[savage1987]

Thanks for that mate, this thread's gone into 'favourites' and I'll see what I can do

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

On a Commodore the little adjuster doesn't have a stop on it, so you can adjust it until the wheel stops, the back it off until the shoes just touch. I have done this too many times to count and the rear wheels do not lock up. The Ford uses a self adjusting mechanism that has to be treated carefully

[*lebowski*]

cheers for the tips, guys!!