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Hey guys just thought you'd like to know how to get your handbrake working so well it'll lock up the wheels with ease. If this kind of thing floats your boat then read on!!

This fix/mod cost me little more than 30min of my time, if you dont have the tools then it'll cost you some actual money too.
Firstly I have only one pic as my camera's battery ran out after taking the first photo, but if you just follow the instructions its really easy to follow.

Exibit A:


Here we see the rear brake calipers, the part to be modified is the handbrake braket that is bolted onto the caliper assembly via a size 14 bolt. Now if your a pro and have a drill press you can make this much neater but all i had was an angle grinder and a hand drill (this was useless).


Exibit B:


Here we have the cut made and the new recess marked out

Exibit C:

Here we have the new recess cutout and the weld blob's on the ends of the prongs.


Step one: Cut along the dotted line

Step two: cut a recess, down to the white dot, similar to the original so that the handbrake cable can fit in. This is located 18mm below the bottom of the original recess.

Step three: Put a blob of weld onto the each of the newly shaped prongs to stop the handbrake cable from slipping off once reassembled.

Step four: Reassemble braking system and adjust handbrake as per the manual (yes that little hex nut under the size 14 bolt)

Step five: go for a spin and enjoy those handbrake entrys/180's/not rolling back down a hill etc.


This mod allows the lever to move almost to the ends of it possible movement range. This is twice the range of standard, and in turn twice the movement of the brake piston - which means double the pressure on the pads!
If this needs any more explaining then just post up and i'll try to fix it.
Thanks guys!!

Dave

excellent!
im gonna give it a go.

good stuff, yea you can really see the difference if you have a set spare just pull the lever and guess where it would pull to if the cable was as low as i have it now, and then compare it to where the max level is with the stock position.
Thats how i came up with the idea

Dave

Excellent...

I'm gunna give this a crack. I had enormous amounts of trouble doing hand brake turns on the motorkhana yesterday... The stock system just doesn't lock them up.

Nice work Sheck!

Boags

Boags'MX5 wrote:I'm gunna give this a crack. I had enormous amounts of trouble doing hand brake turns on the motorkhana yesterday... The stock system just doesn't lock them up.

Were you dipping the clutch?

here are a couple of pics installed:





Dave

rhysk wrote:

Boags'MX5 wrote:I'm gunna give this a crack. I had enormous amounts of trouble doing hand brake turns on the motorkhana yesterday... The stock system just doesn't lock them up.

Were you dipping the clutch?

Oh yes... Clutch pop, here I am... Clutch in - hand brake on to try to brake traction - hand brake off - drop clutch at 5000rpm.

It wasn't so bad going around the middle cone cause it was really wet there, but the outside ones were really hard cause it wasa bit drier out there...

you still need to re-adjust the handbrake every so often to keep it working with this, it'll just provide more pressure hence better lockup.

Playing around with the rear brakes on the weekend, it also looks as though this particular bracket can be removed without having to remove the entire brake assembly.

(although looking at the physical layout of all of it I'm still not completely sure how doing this actually makes a difference)

yea thats right, if you read my instructions it says its held on by 1 14mm bolt (under the pic of it), only reason you see the whole calipers on the floor is cause they are spare!

Uncle Arthur wrote:(although looking at the physical layout of all of it I'm still not completely sure how doing this actually makes a difference)

A slight increase in leverage when the pads are on the disc I think looking at this picture.



Andrew.

yea, looking at a pic doesnt really do it justice unless you can really look at it and see how far the lever goes in stock and modified form.
If you can get them in your hands and do it then it'll be very clear just how much more leverage is created with this mod.

Dave

Sheck wrote:yea, looking at a pic doesnt really do it justice unless you can really look at it and see how far the lever goes in stock and modified form.
If you can get them in your hands and do it then it'll be very clear just how much more leverage is created with this mod.

Dave

WOuldn't bending the bracket give you a similar result?

yea but then the cables wouldnt reach, cause they only have so much adjustment in them - it wouldn't go far enough to a bent out bracket.
Plus the bracket is megga thick so bending it would be very very hard!!!!

Dave

Sheck wrote:yea but then the cables wouldnt reach, cause they only have so much adjustment in them - it wouldn't go far enough to a bent out bracket.
Plus the bracket is megga thick so bending it would be very very hard!!!!

Dave

Bugger I was looking for the easy way out