Ford handbrake strikes again !

[Sprint]

My BA hand brake is quite good, is it the nut behind the wheel thingy?.

[mik]

hand brakes are not to be trusted anyway on any car, always park with steering wheels into the gutter on a hill, local cars in the 60/70`s the hand brakes where not designed to hold well in reverse just for a bit of excitement.

[monte.b]

Originally Posted by Addz08

Same here, had my ute 6yrs, and its never been adjusted, an holds no problem at all...

Same here mate I have had 4 new ford utes and never had a handbrake problem ,my bf mr2 has 110k on the clock ,havnt adjusted the handbrake yet or changed pads ,bloody brilliant ute ,gess you blokes are a bunch of wingers ,always kicking ford products if you don't like fords too much maybe you should join the commodore forum or maybe some of you already are

[Franco Cozzo]

What people do is they just rip up on the hand brake rather than counting the clicks to when you know it holds, for example in the Fiesta, I know it holds strong at 4 clicks, count up 4 clicks and it holds the car even facing down a steep hill.

If you keep just ripping it up as high as it will go, then it goes out of adjustment, and you'll be adjusting it every few services.

[LG17]

Originally Posted by mik

hand brakes are not to be trusted anyway on any car, always park with steering wheels into the gutter on a hill, local cars in the 60/70`s the hand brakes where not designed to hold well in reverse just for a bit of excitement.

If you didn't park like that when you were going for your licence you would fail - once upon a time

[Phyber]

I've read not to stick an auto in P and then take foot off brake, because resting on parking pin isn't safe? I always turn off, handbrake on, foot off brake and let it take the weight, then into P. If the handbrake isn't holding the car there's a problem. The CLUNK of removing it from P if you don't, sounds destructive.

Don't always remember to turn tyres on slight hills though, only on the steeper ones.

PS 6 years old, references to Orion...yeah!

[BigJamo]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

Why would you dig this deep if no h/brake problem?

The heading maybe. Ford handbrake strikes again ! Handbrake failure killing a driver. Could of been many a reason for this, apart from the obvious.

Im doing a 250,000 km front to back service & reading a lot of articles. Ford have had problesm in this area since the 70's, so it never hurts to reed as much as possible, no matter even if it leads no-where.

[madmelon]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

What people do is they just rip up on the hand brake rather than counting the clicks to when you know it holds, for example in the Fiesta, I know it holds strong at 4 clicks, count up 4 clicks and it holds the car even facing down a steep hill.

If you keep just ripping it up as high as it will go, then it goes out of adjustment, and you'll be adjusting it every few services.

THIS.

I've had to have my hand brake adjusted twice in the AUIII XR8 and once in the BF XR6 because when other people have driven them, they've reefed on them so hard it's stretched the cable or whatever. NO NEED FOR IT.


As for not being safe on the parking pawl- it's actualy safer than the parking brake because it can't go out of adjustment. See my earlier post.

[Jack960]

My mums 2011 mazda 3 failed recently. Pulled the hand brake on, got out and went inside. A good 5 minutes had passed, just watching TV and all of a sudden it just rolled down the driveway. Rolled about 50m down the court and smashed into a parked car.
I ran down to it, opened it up and the hand brake was still raised.

We do have a rather steep driveway however, probs should have put it in gear as well.

[MercurySilver]

i put my handbrake on like i put my seat belt on
i just do it as an automated brain thing

[nb_351]

If people don't use their handbrake when parking what do they think it's there did?
I adjust mine at home regularly, wheels off and adjust the cable too, and it holds on our 30degree driveway
It's not rocket science

[alprea]

I have a BA Falcon 2005 MkII sedan and recently noticed the handbrake (Ford call it park brake or parking brake) wouldn’t hold the car from rolling back down the drive even though the slope is very modest, but it operated fine to stop the car rolling forward.

I’ve long known that the handbrake has a reputation for being problematic but was always puzzled as to exactly why. Now, having just replaced the disc/drums and shoes in order to get it all sorted, I think I have some answers. I’m sharing my observations so they may help others. I won’t repeat the adjustment procedure as it’s covered under Technical Documents.

For the record, the car has done 130,000 km and I have been the only driver since new. Apart from occasionally checking its operation, the handbrake has never been used while the car was moving, only when left parked. At about 60,000 km I had noticed the handbrake had lost efficiency and discovered it was only holding one wheel. At that time the adjustment procedure improved it. Now at 130,000 km it could not be fixed by adjustment alone. Here’s what I found:

• The drums were quite worn. They are 190mm dia when new and the wear limit is 190.4mm. Mine were close to 191mm. The way the system is designed, the shoes are floating and it’s pretty clear that even when properly adjusted they drag on the drums (not a great fuel saving feature and probably explains the famous “swooshing” noise although I haven’t experienced it myself). This may also explain why the so many have found the brake adjustment doesn’t last.

• When the drums wear, a lip forms which makes it very difficult to get the drums on and off to make the adjustment especially if you are trying to compensate for the wear on the drum. Some have reported they can make the adjustment through the hole in the drum but it’s just not possible on my car.

• The actuator mechanism is only capable of expanding about 1.5mm (by my measurement). Once it’s reached this limit, additional pressure on the handbrake cable won’t apply any more pressure on the shoes. This explains why yanking harder on a failing handbrake may have no effect at all or braking may be on only one wheel.

• The whole setup requires accuracy of a couple of tenths of a mm. The specified shoe diameter adjustment is 189.6 to 189.8mm which means 0.2 to 0.4mm clearance when the drum is new. With shoe and/or drum wear, the shoe needs to be spread wider to make contact and necessarily becomes less circular. On top of that, the constant dragging likely creates uneven wear on the shoes. These factors would result in reduced contact area between drum and shoe and could explain how the brake can operate fine against forward movement but be virtually inoperative to prevent rolling backwards.

My conclusion is that there are a lot of compromises in the design which mean that it needs to be very accurately set up to get the most effective and lasting service out of it. Nevertheless wear unrelated to the amount of use of the handbrake will ultimately mean progressive loss of effectiveness. It seems ironic that the brake that does the least amount of work on the car is the one that that needs the most attention and expense.

[Pickle7]

A hand break should hold a car in drive with the ac on, if it doesn't then it's going to roll down a hill and Park isn't a mechanism to hold your car either, the pins will wear and break on older cars if mistreated.

[Crazy Dazz]

Originally Posted by BigJamo

I have never asked them personally, but who would get a ST8 answer from them anyways. Cost cutting was the option I would say.

I dont take mine to a service mechanic for just that reason & my handbrake has never had problems, go figure.

[madmelon]

Originally Posted by Pickle7

A hand break should hold a car in drive with the ac on, if it doesn't then it's going to roll down a hill and Park isn't a mechanism to hold your car either, the pins will wear and break on older cars if mistreated.

What pins are you referring to? Do you actually know how a parking mechanism works?

[Landau Stable]

Originally Posted by madmelon

What pins are you referring to? Do you actually know how a parking mechanism works?

He would be referring to the gearbox by the sounds it, saying that it is not suitable to rely on, to hold a car.