advice on my bangers brakes

[princeperch]

I picked up a banger the other day - a 300 quid Nissan almera with 44k on the clock.

I saw from the last mot that it got an advisory for the handbrakes only having just met the requirements.

so I did the old trick of pumping the brake and pulling up the handbrake - that got me a couple of clicks back. I also tried the old trick of slowly pulling up the handbrake when driving (slowly) to get the brakes as tight as possible.

now that all seems to have worked because today it had an mot. whilst it failed for 2 duff bulbs (silly me) it passed on all other aspects without advisories - including the brakes.

however when I tried the old pulling up the handbrake whilst moving trick, a very strange sound came from the nearside rear brake. sort of a clunking sound. it was quite bad at first but after having driven it for a few miles today its much improved and now can only faintly be heard - but only when braking - it doesn't make a sound when moving normally.

it was presented for its mot like that and it got an advisory for knocking from brake. but the brakes all work just fine not even an advisory for efficiency or anything like that.

the mot tester said it might be that the calipers are sticking on the rear drum and they might need a clean up - but he didn't know (and wasn't being paid to tell me either to be fair to him). what do we think it is and is it anything to be worried about given it has all but passed its mot today subject to the duff bulbs?

[ant427]

It's brakes,get them looked at.MOT is only the minimum standard of road worthiness.

[SteveSteveson]

Brakes. Get it looked at. Worst case if you do your £400 car is scrap. Most likely it will be a cheapish fix and you will still have a good car for very little. Worst case if you don't, it's something catastropic and they fail at a bad moment.

[carinaman]

It could be cheap and easy to fix. Brakes are a consumable, they wear.

[steveo3002]

set of rear shoes wont be more than £20 ...just fix it

[Krikkit]

Probably that corner's drums needing a strip and rebuild with a bit of a clean. Easy enough job.

[princeperch]

took it to a local grease monkey and for the price of fifteen pounds he sorted out the clips (or something like that) in the rear drums - said the brakes overall are fine and almost like new. now its nice a quiet when braking.

he also replaced the errant bulb in the back, adjusted the headlights both sides so it should now be good to go for its free retest next week.

bangernomics!

[PositronicRay]

Sounds like a good bloke you should cherish, would you call him a grease monkey to his face?

[TooMany2cvs]

princeperch said:

I saw from the last mot that it got an advisory for the handbrakes only having just met the requirements.

so I did the old trick of pumping the brake and pulling up the handbrake - that got me a couple of clicks back. I also tried the old trick of slowly pulling up the handbrake when driving (slowly) to get the brakes as tight as possible.

now that all seems to have worked because today it had an mot. whilst it failed for 2 duff bulbs (silly me) it passed on all other aspects without advisories - including the brakes.

however when I tried the old pulling up the handbrake whilst moving trick, a very strange sound came from the nearside rear brake. sort of a clunking sound. it was quite bad at first but after having driven it for a few miles today its much improved and now can only faintly be heard - but only when braking - it doesn't make a sound when moving normally.

Take the drum off and have a look.

I'll bet that the original shoes are still in there, and one of them's breaking up.

[carinaman]

princeperch said:

Took it to a local grease monkey and for the price of fifteen pounds he sorted out the clips (or something like that) in the rear drums - said the brakes overall are fine and almost like new. now its nice a quiet when braking.

Thanks for the update. Could be a good garage to continue to use. Nice looking MX-5.