406oc.co.uk

I noticed mine is pretty rubbish at holding the car still on reasonable gradients up and down. Are they normally quite poor or does mine simply need repair? Was sure I read somewhere about them being pretty rubbish.

They are crap.

Worse with rear discs though. The handbrake on my old saloon (which had rear drum brakes) wasn't bad, but on the Coupe (which has rear discs) the handbrake is pretty rubbish.

I don't know if they've always been rubbish or not though - my car is nearly 10 years old and I've owned it for just about a year now. Maybe it's just the general ageing process of the original handbrake cables/shoes/levers (etc) on the 406; after all, the last 406s rolled off the production line in 2004 and the first of them rolled off the production line in 1996, so all 406s are between 7 and 15 years old now. Maybe the handbrakes started off working pretty well?

have just replaced all my discs and pads all round and found the hand brake shoes (when i replaced rear discs) to be nackard poss never been changed since car was made try a set of shoes ill let u know if i ever got mine back together,

In theory the handbrake shoes should never wear. In practice they're so crap they wear out because they don't stop the car. Or they just fall to bits.

I think a lot of the time there's too much play in the system and the leverage is all wrong so they're really stiff - so you end up pulling all the slack out of them and when they actually start doing something you think that's everything come to the end of its travel and stop pulling.

Looky: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13956

So if by nature they are rubbish, will they pass an MOT?

leestudd30 wrote:So if by nature they are rubbish, will they pass an MOT?

I should hope so! I never had a failure at any rate
You can get the handbrake working fairly well if you follow the instructions in Steve's link.
Take a look at the cables, as if these are the originals you may need to replace them; the adjuster will be rusted solid. It made the world of difference to mine!

So are the handbrake shoes a separate part that fits into the disc?

leestudd30 wrote:So are the handbrake shoes a separate part that fits into the disc?

Yes. The rear discs have an integral drum; the shoes fit on the hub and the disc sits over the top.

highlander wrote:the last 406s rolled off the production line in 2004 and the first of them rolled off the production line in 1996

......trouble is they weren't intended to roll off, t'was the handbrake see





*yeah it's the Jacket.... ta, is that the door?

Ha ha lol. So if the shoes had failed, you wouldn't necessarily need to replace the rear discs as well?

leestudd30 wrote:Ha ha lol. So if the shoes had failed, you wouldn't necessarily need to replace the rear discs as well?

Nope, although obviously it depends if the drum part is worn but a good squirt of brake cleaner & a wire brush should get all the crap off.

Hi everyone

New to this forum, but have used it on many occasions for sorting out the problems that I have had on the 2 x 406's that I have owned.

My 1st 406 ( 2.1 TD ) had a non existent handbrake from the day that I bought it, suffered it for many years. It even failed MOT's after changing cables, shoes and discs/drums.

However, I think that I finally sorted it by removing the Expander Mechanism ( the bit that the cable is attached to ) , cleaning it with fine emery paper, lubricating it and reinstalling.
From that day on the handbrake was like new.

Hope this helps

roverv8 wrote:have just replaced all my discs and pads all round and found the hand brake shoes (when i replaced rear discs) to be nackard poss never been changed since car was made try a set of shoes ill let u know if i ever got mine back together,

new shoes but need adjusting, you would think it would need unadjusting as they are new,

Hi

I would have thought that when you removed the old shoes that you wound back the adjusters as far as they would go. Then fit the new shoes and drum/discs and adjust up until drum doesn't turn and wind slightly back.

I had to a fit a new shoes kit because mine had simply disintegrated. They are all getting old now. I bought a full kit which comes with springs for £28 delivered.