How do you get the hand brake cable off the capliper arm ?

[beattiemark]

Help needed, what is the knack ? I have tried everything, with a lot of brute force, but just cant get the eye to slip over the hook on the brake arm on the back of the caliper. What is the secret ? Thanks.

[GrazzerDBazzer]

Follow the cable up to near the middle of the car and there you should find a white adjuster.... Back it right off and then it should come off no problem... you should not even need a spanner but you may need some WD40 if it has not been moved in a while.

[beattiemark]

Thanks, will give it a go, will be a few weeks now as its all back together for the MOT.

[Batwick2]

I struggled for hours with mine (had to replace a rear calliper). Just adjusting the white knurled nuts does not give you enough slack.

Finally cracked it thus:

Get as much slack as you can by relaxing the pressure using the white adjuster nut and it's locknut (driver's side above the diff on my 2S).

Then find the crescent-shaped dubrey in the transmission tunnel that connects to the handbrake and pulls the cables whilst balancing the tension. This is attached by a pin that is itself retained by a split pin. Remove the split pin and pull the pin out to detach it from the handbrake. You now have all the slack you need, and the handbrake cable comes off the calliper with ease.

Note that to get to the underside of the handbrake you really need to remove the rear chassis strengthening plate (unless you have tiny hands). This was why I kept putting-off tackling the job like this. But it's only six bolts and took no time at all in the end. If I'd just done this in the first place, I would have saved myself hours of work and a lot of swearing!