Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Plus Four, Supersport & Plus Six (CX & CXV Generation Vehicles) handbrake cable

Today, I had the PlusFour on the lift to change the tires.
I noticed that the handbrake cable on the right side is much shorter than on the left side when not engaged. Is this normal?
I hope you can see what I mean in the pictures.

Image one: short brake cable on the right

Image two: long brake cable on the left

When my car was last in for a service at a main dealer the mechanic said that they always loosen of the hand brake cables and work the leavers on the rear calipers as there has been problems with the calipers seizing in the past. Apparently the cable adjuster is on the left hand side of the car. Hope this helps.

Apparently its all one cable from left to right. Presumably you only need to adjust on one side but obviously best on both sides. Saying that my handbrake cable is seized and I am awaiting the fitting of a new one under warranty. Make sure whole cable is well oiled/greased. The mechanic said he would soak my new cable in oil before fitting!
PS my handbrake has never really worked from new and I am sure it would fail an MOT.

Interesting thread this. Like the comment above, the handbrake on my 21 plus four has always been pathetic at best. The car has had 2 MOTs and failed each time on the handbrake. So now I have had to pay twice for the handbrake to be adjusted to pass the MOT (despite minimal millage). Indeed, every time the car has been in the dealers the H/brake has been adjusted so it sort of functions - only to be useless again in a few hundred miles. Unfortunately the factory/dealers seem to think it's acceptable.

Liam, if you print off the GoMoG instruction set and present it to any reasonably competent mechanic asking him to follow the instructions to the letter, i am pretty sure you may* end up with a properly functioning handbrake..

* I only typed may as if you do not make much use of your Morgan the interior of the brake drum corrodes around its circumference where the brake shoes make contact with it and after a period of inactivity when the brakes are applied this surface corrosion can contaminate the shoes to some degree causing the efficiency of the braking effect to diminish somewhat,

Dependant on a mix of use or lack of and of storage conditions automatic adjusting mechanisms can fail to operate... ?

I suspect rather than risk a failure of an MOT test, and if you are not inclined to work on the car yourself for any reason.... Might be best to present the car for a pre-mot test and service, asking for the rear brake drums to be removed the dust and corrosion to be cleaned out and asking the mechanic to follow the GoMoG instruction set, after which a pass should be guaranteed...?

Good luck in your choices.

Luddite, these are CX models. The handbrake acts on the disc brake piston via a mechanism. CX no longer have drum brakes.

My Morgan underwent this preliminary inspection before going to the TÜV Liam
The handbrake has no effect. I only got the stamp thanks to good connections.Now I have to go to my Morgan dealer. I'm curious to see what they'll say.
At the same time, it was discovered that the rear right wheel bearing is defective. My Morgan was delivered in December 2022 and now has 40,000 km on the clock.

CL+4, thanks for pointing that out though I did not attempt to refresh my miserable memory by reading through the thread... Blush..!

I think much of that which I typed in my last, and that which is described on GoMoG, still applies in terms of the simple mechanical process to adjust a cable operated handbrake system to end up with a balanced operation, be that with or without automatic rear brake adjusters.

Pretty sure GoMoG may also cover all sorts of brake designs and issues thereof relating to many different eras of Morgans.

Having "enjoyed" hand brake issues operated by tiny pads on discs of a early Lotus Elan, various Jaguars and others.... I too have suffered from designs that seem likely to create issues in use over time....(-:

As ever more than happy to be corrected where I seem likely to have made mistakes... and I make a few... Duh..!

Yep, I seem to recall that my '72 Elan Sprint was 'use handbrake only for MOT, and adjust before use'.

Good afternoon Clemens, if the Plus Four setup is the same as the early Plus Six, which it appears to be, I can tell you that the cable is one piece, with the outer cable adjustment ( tension ) on the left hand side when looking at the rear of the car. The cable inner goes around a pulley on the rear of the handbrake lever, thus equalising the pull force across both sides of the cable. From your photos you can see that the handbrake lever at the caliper has actuated a lot more on one caliper than the other ( distance from handbrake arm backstop to actuated position ).. I have noted this on several other Plus Six cars, but your difference between calipers seems excessive. Our car originally had a very poor handbrake and associated noises which took a lot of sorting by the dealer, the final fix was the complete handbrake/caliper mounts and calipers were replaced, this fixed the issue, I then noted that the difference in distance between the handbrake arm backstop and the "on" position of the arms was now similar.
I have since tried to find out if there is any sort of self adjustment in the handbrake mechanism on the rear caliper, but I have not been able find this information, as this could result in a difference in the position of the caliper handbrake arms. Also, it could be that the side that has the least amount of caliper arm movement may be partially seized in the cable or the caliper actuator or possibly the caliper itself. A look at the two calipers brake pads to see if one is more worn than the other maybe a clue. Lastly, its possible that the calipers were not manufactured correctly from new ( as ours was )..
As the handbrake cable ends are very exposed on the CX design I keep the exposed part of the cable greased and I clean the cable and renew the grease each year.
Hope this helps.. Dave

The left hand cable looks as if it is only just engaged in the lever compared to the right hand side. Is the lever sized on that side? Can you get someone to apply the handbrake while you look at the calipers? Also the difference in visible cable/ lever position looks as if there might be insufficient movement to engage the self adjuster to operate on the left side? If that is the case then the left brake might not engage as much as the right hand side. Is there a left-right difference in the MOT read-out?
Also, my MyY23 has less than desirable handbrake efficiency. Checked at dealer on two services and new cable fitted and readjusted at MMC. Slightly better but the MOT next year will be interesting! My calipers look different to yours. There is a return spring on the outside between the caliper body and lever. I did have a video of each side operating but deleted. I might do another.
The car is an auto so P park mode holds the car but not the ideal situation.ideal. On a hill stop I put the handbrake on then P mode if likely to be there a while. Short stop = footbrake only.