My mean green hornet

Ball joint done yep, went smoothly and without event.
I've tried adjusting the handbrake cable with the 'middle' adjuster but it's not good enough still at the MOT centre.
A little confused as two of us couldn't move the car with the handbrake on after adjusting, and when jacked up the wheels weren't moving an inch with a long bar on a wheel nut :?
One side has got very good whilst the other has halved in it's effort according to the re-test
So tomorrow i guess it's onto looking at the rear linkage properly.

Two exhausts would be nice but tricky with the auto isn't it? I could have a dummy one :roll:
I know what you're saying about the v8 badge, unsure yet though. I might relocate it..It is a nice badge especially when polished and it's all in the little details.
And it's nice to shout about the fact you have a V8, just in case people don't realise :LOL:

Paul, it is indeed Cameron green. One of the best standard colours i think. My respray will be a kind of tribute to it -darker metallic with very similar amounts of yellow in the green mix like the corvettes on the first page.
Jim
 
corazon said:
I've tried adjusting the handbrake cable with the 'middle' adjuster but it's not good enough still at the MOT centre.
A little confused as two of us couldn't move the car with the handbrake on after adjusting, and when jacked up the wheels weren't moving an inch with a long bar on a wheel nut :?
One side has got very good whilst the other has halved in it's effort according to the re-test
So tomorrow i guess it's onto looking at the rear linkage properly.
Click to expand...

The "adjuster" on the cable under the tunnel isn't an adjuster, it's only there to enable you to set the cable correctly, and there's only one correct position. Moving from that position will only give excess travel, or reduce the travel and stop the calipers adjusting. I think you're going to do a bit more than fiddle with the linkage if you want a handbrake that works, and stays working.
 
Well that will be why it's no better then!
Harvey i've just read some of the things you've written regarding the handbrake on other posts.
And yes i certainly do want a handbrake that stays working :)
Can this have just been caused by the car sitting for a year?
Or does it sound like it wasn't correctly adjusted prior- The rear brakes were overhauled a only couple of months beforehand..
Jim
 
It is possible that the time it's been left standing could have caused problems, but TBH my money would be on them not having been set up properly when they were refitted. The only person I could be absolutely sure would have done them properly would have been me, and I'm pretty sure that it wasn't me that did them. The process for me would be the same whatever the cause, because there's only one way as far as I'm concerned. Drop the discs out, remove the clevis pins from the quadrants and remove the handbrake link out of the way, then operate the quadrants to make sure the calipers are working, (if not sort those problems) then ratchet them up until the discs only just slide in between the pads at rest. Then refit the cable so the quadrants are back on their stops, but there is no slack in the cable.
 
Thanks Harvey,
After another look today, I think i've found what's causing some of the trouble.
The discs are looking really quite tired, the polished section was much narrower than the pad- rusty inner and outer ridges.
So I presume the pad has primarily been touching the raised rusty section when applied.
I've ground the rust back and it's definitely made a difference, but i don't know if it's time for new discs or not :?
Jim
 
Usually the rusty section is actually thinner than the shiney part (I think it's because the rust basically flakes off). Being terminally-tight I'm the king of diy disc skimming :LOL:

New discs and pads would certainly help, but you still need to be sure the calipers are working properly.
 
From memory, an MoT tester should fail a car when the swept area of the discs falls below a certain percentage of the original. Perhaps some of the professional garagistes on here could confirm? Personally I would never skim discs at all! But especially I wouldn't skim the rear discs on a P6. I think they are already extremely thin for the temperatures they have to endure in their unpromising (for cooling) location. Sorry Jim, I think it's new discs (and pads!) time. At leasts that settles the discussion about withdrawing the discs to prove the working of the adjusters!

Chris
 
Dave, the only reason there are tolerences quoted is that it was considered conventional in the 50's to skim drums, and people wouldn't accept not doing it when discs came along. Unless you have unusually thick and meaty discs it really isn't an acceptable practice today. The Rover's rear discs are notably skinny in an attempt to maximise the length available for the drive shafts (a side effect of having opted for the de dion). Whereas in the 60's you could reckon on some recovery time for the brakes, today very severe stops from high speed are an unavoidable feature of motorway driving. You just can't afford to mortgage the heat performance of the discs any more.

Just an engineering opinion. Of couse if you can get someone to do it for you and there is a tolerence in the manual it must be OK.......

Chris
 
I'm not an engineer but surely the manufacturers know there is adequate braking capacity when the disc is at minimum thickness .
I'm sure I've had discs skimmed " on the car " in recent years by main dealers when I had brake shudder on an 02 Peugeot 406.
Someone on this forum had their rear discs skimmed a short time ago .What else do you do if replacement discs aren't available ?
 
My mechanic friend recently skimmed some P6 front discs on the car for a customer, he has a special machine for doing it.
 
webmaster said:
Usually the rusty section is actually thinner than the shiney part (I think it's because the rust basically flakes off). Being terminally-tight I'm the king of diy disc skimming :LOL:

New discs and pads would certainly help, but you still need to be sure the calipers are working properly.
Click to expand...
I wondered what your DIY technique was Richard? I know a lot of folk don't think disc skimming is a good idea. However, if done right (even surfaces and no weight imbalance) and you don't go below the minimum thickness, what's the problem?
 
I don't think it's a good idea to describe my technique, it's certainly something I'm not proud of, and I've only ever done it as a "get the cr*p off to get them working" sort of thing, usually to get a laid up vehicle through an MOT. Followed by lots of left foot braking / handbrake useage to get the pads bedded in quickly. :oops:
 
As alluded to in my previous response, the issue is that the disc finishes up with less material. Therefore the temperature gradients within the disc are greater. In "normal" use, perhaps not an issue. But when you really need them, the brakes will be more prone to fade and there will also be increased risk of the disc fracturing. The latter is a common problem on P6 rear brakes where they are already seriously thin. Regular readers will have seen several examples of discs where the shiny bit has fractured away from the hub.

Chris
 
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