tightening the handbrake

[ae86]

before i give it a whirl, which part should i be tampering with to try get it to lock better ? is there an adjustment on the interior half of the handbrake ? or should i try at the Y link under the car or @ the discs

[Hen may possibly be a nut]

There are two things you can adjust on yor handbrake.

Firstly the shoes in the drums. Take the drums off, and there is a little, star shaped nut which can push the shoes further apart. Wind them out as far as possible until just before the shoes start dragging on the drum when you slide it on. It takes a bit of on and off with the drum to get it right. Also if the drum ahs a big lip on it, it'll give you the shits.

Then you should also pay some attention to the cable (adjuster is on the handbrake handle). Tighten it until the cable has lust the tiniest bit of slack in it. So as soon as you move the handle it tightens and starts to do its work. It's pretty easy to feel this point.

Then you're done. Go do skids.

Hen

[Beck]

...or @ the discs

I'm curious about this as well. Ever since swapping to a disc rear axle, my handbrake cable is quite a bit looser than it used to be.

[H8CHIR6KU]

for a disc rear end you only need to adjust the cable at the lever.

just remove the handbrake surround undo the 10mm locking nut and adjust the cable by tightening the other 10mm nut. when your at your desired strength just tighten the 2 10mm into each other to lock it

just for further info for those with drum brakes. make sure when adjusting at the drums that you have backed of the adjustment at the lever otherwise you won't have a true adjustment at the shoes

[Hen may possibly be a nut]

Oops... missed the discs part. If they are Corona discs, what I wrote still holds, just replace "disc" with "drum". If they are JDM AE86 discs then I have no experience.

Hen

[Jonny Rochester]

For rear disks on TE71, AE86, AE92 etc... May need to repeat the following steps a few times to sus it all out. I suspect their bad reputation is due to poor adjustment, will test on my own car in a few months... I sometimes see AE92 SX cars where the handbrake won't hold the car, or only brakes 1 wheel. Same applys to Subaru L series front brakes (my daily, lol).

1. Jack rear of car up. Both wheels off.
2. Put handbrake lever down/off. Check that there is some slack in both brake cables. If not, loosen the cable at the brake lever. Just loosen it anyway. 10mm.
3. Investigate. Pull the cable or brake lever at the caliper and try and spin the hub, and see if the brakes are working at all. When released, the brake lever should return to it's stop, without tension on the cable.
4. If somethings not right, take the pads out and wind the piston back in all the way, even if you don't think you need to. Re-assemble with pads.
5. Bleed the rear brakes. Put your foot on the brake, which brings all the pistons and pads into place.
6. Seeing that the levers at the caliper are resting on their stops, adjust the handbrake at the lever in the car.

I may have missed something. This should work.

Quick method, in theory:
1. Loosen handbrake cable a lot. (Important first step)
2. Put foot on a brake a few times.
3. Adjust handbrake cable.

If this does not work, you need to do as above and wind the pistons back.