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[terry paget]

My car passed its MOT today, with several advisory notes. Main advice was handbrake needed great effort to reach MOT standard. I had noticed this myself. This is my son's car, and he is a big strong chap, unlike me. Tonight I stripped down the left hand handbrake assembly, and discovered, as I suspected, that the lever arrangement which the cable pulls and spreads the shoes, was seized solid. A quick measurement shows a 5 to 1 mechanical advantage in the levers, which is lost if the wretched thing is seized solid.

Now I have it apart I will fit new shoes and clean and grease everything. The drums are OK.

I can never get off the left hand cable return spring, and end up cutting it off. Is there a trick? The right hand spring is easy.

[dbug]

It comes off the same as the right 

[terry paget]

My trouble is the spring ends are 90 degrees different. This means that the RH spring goes into the cable lever end from above, and drops out easily, whereas the LH spring goes in from below and will never come out for me. I end up getting cross with it and cutting it off. Spares cost £3 each.

[Webby the Bear]

I had hell with the springs when I did brake shoes at college. there are some tricks I've seen. having never done my omega parking brake assembly though I have no idea what the set up is like other than being somewhere between stupidly difficult and hell.