Hand brake has been playing up recently in that it has been reluctant to fully release, such that as you drive away a "rubbing" sound has been obvious ... applying and releasing the hand brake 2-3 times whilst on the move has always resulted in a fully free, no noise, drive. Whilst ok as a short term fix this was not acceptable to me, so today I decided to strip, clean, lubricate and reassemble the rear brakes.
On stripping the internal levers for the handbrake were bone dry and quite stiff, so cleaned up and regreased with copper grease. Only hassle was one of the four handbrake shoe pins just did NOT want to play .. took over an hour just to get it on properly... now that WAS frustrating, why couldn't it be like the other three and pop straight on ??
As I have always done, once the shoes are partially adjusted, I activated the hand brake a couple of times to centralise the shoes, with the intention of leaving it on 3 clicks for the final shoe adjustment ... which is where it all went pear shaped......
On the second pull something went "twang" and the handbrake lever is totally free throughout its range , absolutely no resistance whatsoever..
The cables at the drums are still under good tension, but the cable at the base of the handbrake lever is loose and floppy, although no visible breakage can be seen on the very small visible length...
Copious amounts of plusgas has been applied to all the heatshield bolts in the hope they undo tomorrow, if not the drill and self tappers might be getting a workout later !! I'm hoping that I can remove the heatshields without recourse to removing exhaust and propshaft as Haynes stipulates !!
I'm guessing that something has come adrift around the compensator bar... but what ...
Any advice on removing heatshields or any guesses as to what I might find or have to do next, gratefully accepted ...