Peugeot 406 2.0HDi Estate, handbrake effort

[valhalla]

I have a regular customer with a very low mileage 406 Estate on an '02-plate. Over the last couple of years, I've done everything to improve the handbrake action, but never seem to get anywhere with this one. So far, it's had new disc/drums on the back, completely overhauled the handbrake expander and adjuster mechanisms, new brake shoes within the drum (as well as service pads outwith the drum), I've run-in the handbrake shoes on the road and stripped/cleaned inside afterwards.

Today it was in for a pre-MoT, and once again, the handbrake was just rubbish. Yet again, I removed the drum/disc, and emery-clothed the shoes and the drum friction surface. I then washed the drum in brake cleaner, blew it dry, adjusted the shoes to 2-clicks off binding solidly, then reassembled everything. It's better, and with a decent yank on the lever, it has plenty of reserve travel with a fair braking force, but it still doesn't inspire confidence. It'll pass an MoT if the tester isn't a complete jessie in the left-arm department.....

Only one thing seems wrong (as yet) and that is a feeling that the cables are a bit "dry" - there's a feeling of graunchy friction when the lever is applied good and hard, although there is not one iota of binding in the cable, or dragging on the brakes, when the lever is released again - everything returns just fine.

Is this a common feature of the 406 (Estate) or is there anything else that can be done to improve the situation? The lady owner doesn't trust the handbrake at all (it used to bind on in the winters, and more than once dragged the shoe lining away when the car first pulled away). Not being used is definitely part of the problem, but I've looked closely at the friction surface, and the shoes are making even contact when they are expanded, so I think they're bedded-in. My main thought is to try a different compound of lining - the present shoes are Vtec from GSF Car Parts.

[Karl]

I don't know about Peugeot s


But on fords especially focus 3 you can find a poor hand brake together with a graunchy feel.


There's no visible defect to seen on the cables. Once they are replaced the brake performance returns and a smooth operation

[gasmonkey]

I agree with Karl, new cables.

Many moons back I owned an Escort, the h/brake performance deteriorated. Replacing shoes and drums didn't improve it, further investigation revealed full cable travel at h/brake lever but only partial travel at the shoes! new cables restored performance.

[french crap fanatic]

If I remember correctly the 406 had cables going in various directions at the back,I'm pretty sure there were 3 cables altogether or a weird set up.
Get new cables fitted,like as been said they may look fine but they wear out internally.
V tec are budget range from gsf,so far brakes and water pumps seem ok.
Never buy v tec bearings,there Made of chocolate and I had mini rad fan that had a connector missing.

[rhyds]

Another for handbrake cables. My alfa's handbrake performance was transformed with a new set of cables.

[valhalla]

Thanks for all the replies; sounds like handbrake cables then! I did think about spraying the inners with silicon fluid where they are exposed at the rear axle - the 406 Estate has a cable that runs round towards one drum, with a plastic quadrant affair, then a second cable runs back from that to the second drum. I checked all these out, and everything seems to move correctly, but the gut feeling of the graunchy action makes me want to sort this out for the customer - I don't want the cables to stretch or snap on her.

[davejonsun]

I have 406 2.0 hdi 90 disk rear brake. The side cables fray/wear where they chafe at the mid-mounting points and then cable outers rust which makes handbrake less efective .
I have just been through all this - 3 new cables,shoes,degrease - still rubbish , and ended up building up the handbrake shoe expander mechanism with a bit of weld.
The expander is what the cable fits into and is maybe only 2mm thick on each side of the pivot point - where it wears. Also it wears at the ends where the shoes fit on. The trouble is that you cannot really tell how worn it is - unless you compare it next to a new one !
If you can move it up and down between the shoes with cables relaxed I guess you have some wear.
If you build the expander up too much you can simply cut the brake shoe slots deeper which are a bit shallow anyway.- using thin cutting disk/angle grinder until the shoes touch/nearly touch the stop on the backing plate. If it's too big the disk won't fit !!!
When the handbrake cable is pulled the expander only moves a few mm, so wear in the expander has a noticable affect and clearly the harder you pull the hand brake more wear occures.
My local dealer closed lately so I haven't found out how much these parts cost.

I know this is a zombie thread but I hope this helps someone. My 406 has 227k and got 195 on each side 26% - it struggled to get 80 when it failed and got (40 and 195) on 2nd try with new shoes/cables, then 2 x 195 after weld.

[valhalla]

As I remember on this car (I'm locked out of the garage data at the moment), what fixed this one was to use decent brake linings from a reputable manufacturer. Vtec just did not work with the drum surfaces.

I took the disc/drum units off the car, washed and dried the whole disc friction area thoroughly with brake solvent, then "honed" a decent brake surface into the drum by scrubbing the metal with fine emery paper wound onto a sanding drum attached to a power drill - the action was to quickly move the sanding drum across the width of the brake surface whilst the drum was turning on a low gear setting. By soaking the emery with brake solvent at the same time, I cleaned the drums up until they had no choice but to grip. All was washed again thoroughly with solvent afterwards.

Two things had worked against me when I originally fitted these units; firstly, the new disc/drums had an oily protection that had not been washed-out first time of fitting (despite of copious washing in solvants), and secondly, the disc/drums had been fitted first time round with a feint wipe of copper-grease between hub and disc/drum - this is one application where you MUST fit the metalwork bone-dry of grease - there was a slight witness of the grease being spun-out.

With decent shoes (I believe they were Brembo, but I might be mistaken - I would have to look back at the order), plus the finish on the drums above, there was no issue getting a good static and dynamic retardation on my 1:5 test-slope outside the workshop, and the only subsequent complaint is that the handbrake sometimes sticks on in the morning - you cannot win them all!!

One thing that can help is to ensure that the shoe radius matches the drum radius, with a bit of dry sanding with wet&dry to get the shape better on the friction lining. I don't think that the usual bedding-in technique of applying the handbrake on the move worked on this particular car, it was too slow to make any difference, and I was getting impatient to "loose" this job, so to speak....