Chips1973
Member Since: 17 Dec 2011
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 51
  
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| Hand brake actuator broke or not ? |
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Is there a way to tell if the actuator is working or not without taking it to a garage as I have had enough bills lately with constant suspension faults !
What happened was, following new disks on the rear I noticed a grinding noise occasionly but thought it was just the new pads bedding in, however all of a sudden one rear wheel locked but freed up on reversing , got home but then the dreaded hand brake screech when applied and the wheels locked and would not free up even with the emergency release ( nearly put my back out I pulled so hard !)
Anyway stripped the brakes down to discover the right handbrake had destroyed itself and so to get going just removed everything and re fitted the disk, the left side would still not free of so stripped that side out and refitted the disk. She runs lovely now and is as tight in the suspension as a new one, not bad for 203k miles ! Problem though is it obviously wont get through it's next MoT without a hand brake. My local indy will give £1k for it with or with out an MoT and the best trade in I have been offered when working is only £1200 anyway so not a lot to lose.
Now if the actuator is okay i could rebuild the brakes myself for not too much spend, so my first question, is it just a case of rebuilding them , putting the fuse back in and all will be fine if the actuator is okay or do you need to get a dealer to reset it with a laptop ?
And secondly , is there a way to tell if the actuator is okay before doing the above so as to save time and money if it's goosed? For example could I put the fuse back in and operate the hand brake to see if the cables moves or could this do more damage to the actuator as it needs resitance from the shoes to stop the motor.
If it needs a new actuator I think I'm at the point where I will run it until the MoT is out and scrap it for a young disco 4, the only down side to that is as my 17 year old son is a named driver it will up the insurance £800 over the disco 3.
Thanks in advance for any help 
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 13th Feb 2024 9:08 pm |
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