I had an Alfa mechanic adjust my handbrake and it worked properly for one week.
I changed the cable with an original and adjusted it to six lever clicks and it worked properly for one week.
I re-adjusted it to six lever clicks but had to insert a spacer at the end of the cable harness to provide adequate take-up, worked properly for one week.
Where the hell is all this cable stretch coming from ?
It could be the self adjusters in the calipers are not working, they leave the gap between the rotor and brake pad too large and the handbrake lever hits the roof before the pads contact the rotor, adjust the freeplay on the calipers to approx .004 of an inch or ,1 mm by the adjusters on the calipers, or make sure the brake pads have a little 'rattle' in them and are not binding on rotor, then adjust handbrake so that it locks on the pads at say 6 clicks and when off there is no brake pads dragging on rotor, if after about a week you have no handbrake, i will say its your calipers, Colin.
So, assuming there is no play in the calipers, there should only be approx. a 1 mm gap between the rotor and pad.
My method to adjust the calipers is to wind the adjustment right up on each pad until the rotor won't turn, then back it off again until it does freely; i.e. there is no interference. That seats the internal self-adjusting mechanism.
Then adjust the handbrake. All should be good. Sometimes you get a little binding on the calipers afterwards but that's just a quick tweak to back the adjustment off a touch.
To adjust the handbrake from inside the car, assuming the adjustment mechanism is working fine, foot hard on the brake then work the handbrake lever up and down repeatedly. Can take a few minutes of this but it works.
The clearance between the rotors and the pads should be .004 inch or four thou or 0,1 mm, not critical, Alfa manual suggests using feeler gauges, just make sure with the handbrake off there is a little clearance there, ie you can slightly 'rattle' the brake pads, also make sure the outer handbrake cable is free to move in its guide, the inner cable 'pulls' one caliper, the one further away to the handbrake and the outer cable 'pushes' the other caliper, that is the one closest to from the handbrake, these ATE German calipers were a subject of a recall in the 80's, so you could have a dud set, Colin.
Hi Guys.
I agree with whats written above.
But many make a common mistake.
Fully release the handbrake cable from the caliper before doing any adjustments = loosen the 10-13 headed nuts from the cable at the caliper so the cable is not moving the caliper levers.
Then do caliper adjustments= inner and outer.
Then adjust the handbrake cable by dooing up the nuts,so the handbrake lever goes up about 4 clicks.
There are 5 adjustments to be made to rear calipers + handbrake= 2 outters,2 inners,and final handbrake cable adjustment.
Calipers will not adjust properly if handbrake cable is not released from the levers before caliper adjustments.
There was another trick to keep the rear calipers and handbrake in adjustment at all times,but thats another story.
Robert