Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing ARP4 handbrake?

I think I have the usual ARP4 situation with the handbrake. Even using a slightly ridiculous amount of force at the lever (far out of the normal range expected and to the point where one hesitates to pull harder) it is difficult to say the brake is effective. Personally I haven't disassembled it yet but Ledgerwoods had a look during the service and said it was as good as they could get it.

Has anyone on TM got to the bottom of the issue? More to the point has anyone found a cure?

Yours optimistically!

Work in progress Ian. You will find that the rear rivnut, holding the ali. gaiter surround, interferes with the cable when tight, so the first step is to drill this out - which helps a bit, but it's still not great.

A 'work around' is to hold down the footbrake then apply the handbrake, this gives around 50% more holding power, still not good but generally good enough. My next job is to remove the leather gaiter and have a look at the other end of the lever and see if this can be easily extended to give more leverage, if that doesn't work, it may mean extending the little lever arms on the caliper, if that doesn't work, I'm plain out of ideas and am back to a couple of bits of wood.

The question to ask is: would it pass an MOT. If not then that response is not good enough.

How can Morgan release them into the wild without a proper handbrake ?!!!!...worrying !!!

Yes, yes, we've been down that road, Morgan being what they are, it is up to owners/dealers to sort the problem. Nothing is impossible, and sometimes just a bit of ingenuity will overcome the difficulties.

Forget the fact that you can buy a new car for £10,000 with a perfectly good working handbrake as well as other stuff that just works, this is a Morgan, with all the trials and tribulations that brings and owner input is often required.

Isn't that half the fun?

PS Martin, I'll answer your very valid question in another year and a half, but my guess is that it would pass.

I'll make you an offer if it doesn't, Paul...y'know, just to take it off your hands..

I might need to take you up on that kind offer Steve, but don't call me, I'll call you.....

Garage Albert in Brussels sold their own arp4 this year .
They had the handbrake modif and passed the Belgian Mot succesfully.

Thanks for the speedy reply Paul. I'll start with the gaiter surround - looks like a rainy Saturday anyway up our way anyway.

Sensible tip about using the foot-brake at the same time - presumably handbrake works on main calipers then (I know some cars where they have/used to have a supplementary small caliper for the hand-brake.

two years ago I converted my 1985 +8 to rear discs and suffered from a poor handbrake this is a similar system to yours I think (sierra cosworth callipers ) what i did was first ensure the handbrake cable has a smooth run to the callipers, then remove the calliper and with a pair of pliers adjust the calliper lever to take up the slack in the auto adjust system, make sure the calliper still fits over the disc, if you go too far you will have to wind the calliper back and start again. Then do the same to the other calliper ensuring they do not bind. then move onto the handbrake cable and take up all the slack and put a bit of preload on it, road test to make sure nothing is binding or getting hot.
you will be amazed at the difference. I have put a lot of miles on my car since i did this without any problems and there are some extreme gradients where I live and it always holds OK. plus it passed the MOT without any problems.
David Byrne.