Another reason to always do the same thing to either side of brakes.
I have a good article somewhere how to set these up right, will have to look for it, was more tricky than I thought.
The last ones I did on my 420G a few years back work very well (but I dont have to pass such a onerous test!)
One thing I have noticed is bolt 8845 is usually bent like a pretzel, and a new one is needed.
I cant understand why, other than something wasnt set right, and forces are poorly distributed within the mechanism
Thank you all!
Indeed, David, the umbrella lever feel didn’t change at all, which is no surprise given that we reused the same pads and did our best to find the same original position of bolt 8845 in the gear wheel 8980.
I think what you’re describing is why, as Robin pointed out rightly, you should work on one brake only … Our only apologies are that there seemed to be an identifiable malfunction on one side (which we actually found in the exploded ratchet mechanism) and that one brake alone cost us the best part of five hours and at three p.m. my mechanic had another three cars to fix for that day …
I’ll be in there tomorrow morning … keeping fingers crossed
Jochen
BTW, Tony, so far I’ve only seen the lh brake but in that bolt 8845 (which is a quite solid piece of steel) was absolutely straight. The two parts of the handbrake are mounted so loosely that the compressing force exercised by the lever should always go along the bolt. Maybe things are different if the brake parts bind on the bolt.
75 XJ6L 4.2 auto (UK spec)
Good evening everybody,
tonight I just wanted to feed back that we’re done - that is the car is done: handbrake works properly (210 daN left - 200 daN right), TÜV plate awarded - you don’t believe how relieved I was!
Yet, I’m done as well. It was probably the hardest fight I had with any car so far. Yes Pete, in the end it was the third attempt at the TÜV, but the truly hard things were the hours in between.
15 days ago I wrote about how much time we took to pull the handbrake, restore the function of the adjustment mechanism in the lever and reinstall.
9 days ago I wrote we got the lh handbrake functioning, but missed the balancing.
In the meantime we were on this thing two more times for many more hours. The good thing: we learned more things (that I have edited into the first write up).
Just to give an idea of our meandering: as the lh brake was too strong, we pulled it out and loosened it. Reinstallment was a breeze, but vain, as there was no braking effect on the lh side and the adjustment mechanism didn’t work. Brake out again, lever open, found that the initially broken adjustment mechanism had led to a deformation of the outer cover of the lever and this would allow the gearwheel to wander away. Corrected.
Next attempt tighter. Disappointing to see it was way too tight.
Last attempt today: We were able to access the split pin 3752 without removing the brake, then turned the bolt 8845 ccw until we found an appropriate play of the pads (as we had been removing the lever and put everything in good order inside before, it would turn easily with a very tiny ratchet), then temporarily fixed the bolt, tested the car - to a good result with a now properly working adjustment mechanism! -, and fixed all the bolts, split pins and greased the cable.
Thank you all again who helped us see it through! Enjoy the week end
Jochen
75 XJ6L 4.2 auto (UK spec)
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Thanks for the explanations, Jochen - the devil is obviously in the detail…
Seemingly; imbalance may be caused by unmatched adjustments left and right - which may also occur over time if one of the adjuster does not work…?
Frank
xj6 85 Sov Europe (UK/NZ)
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Indeed Frank, this would be my explanation as well:
I checked the TÜV reports over the last years (we have to report once every two years) and 6 years ago left was still considerably stronger left at 200 : 160, but over the last years it changed from 210 : 190 over 100 : 190 to 60 : 260. So I might have guessed something was going wrong …
Also, the completely disintegrated ratchet mechanism wasn’t spread over the grease, but firmly buried in the crumbling mixture of dirt and grease, indicating the destruction must have happened years ago.
So, I suppose what happened was that the main bolt at one point of time didn’t turn freely in the gear wheel any more. Instead of turning in and adjusting it would press the gear wheel outward. The outer cover gradually gave in, bulged and eventually the gear wheel moved behind the ratchet mechanism. The lateral tension exercised by the gear wheel on the ratchet worked out the axle and finally made the ratchet explode. From then on the lh caliper was totally unable to adjust while the full braking power was concentrated in the rh caliper. Now, how does CSI Konstanz sound?
From what I saw the brake pads are pretty safe, the main bolts operation is more or less fail safe, but the critical parts are inside the levers. So, if there’s a loss of action, it is very easy to check pads and main bolt operation upon pulling the caliper - if everything is o.k. there chances are the adjustment mechanism inside the lever is the culprit.
Of course, we should have looked at the rh caliper as well. That being said, access to the rh hand brake caliper is additionally obstructed by the cable mechanism and the brake line. That’s why we tried to avoid opening this Pandora’s box as well …
Best
Jochen
75 XJ6L 4.2 auto (UK spec)
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Thank you, Jochen, that seems to cover it - and serve as an early warning of problems…
Frank
xj6 85 Sov Europe (UK/NZ)
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