Hello' I posted earlier on the 'introduce yourself' bit so thought I would try here. I cannot get my handbrake to work. I have an 06 Freelander 1 auto and it failed the MOT on this. I have changed the cable and fitted new drums and shoes, but no amount of adjustment will get the handbrake to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I hand over my wallet to the garage guys?

gravelfinger said:

Hello' I posted earlier on the 'introduce yourself' bit so thought I would try here. I cannot get my handbrake to work. I have an 06 Freelander 1 auto and it failed the MOT on this. I have changed the cable and fitted new drums and shoes, but no amount of adjustment will get the handbrake to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I hand over my wallet to the garage guys?

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Have you whipped the drums off and got someone to operate the lever while you watch the shoes? What happens exactly? Has the handbrake ever worked?

Yes drums have been off and checked twice. It's the damm handbrake will not lock the wheels even on setting 6. Have checked the new shoes and even shortened the springs but no luck. Just hope someone can offer up a suggestion.

Given the adjuster an adjust?

Did you check the new cables against the old ones? I bought a set last year and one side wouldn't lock. Bottom line, it was the wrong cable.

gravelfinger said:

Yes drums have been off and checked twice. It's the damm handbrake will not lock the wheels even on setting 6. Have checked the new shoes and even shortened the springs but no luck. Just hope someone can offer up a suggestion.

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Can you get the wheels to lock by using the adjusters?

Perhaps some fool has missed out a piece of the shoe hardware?

Hi all,
Got my first Freelander two weeks ago. VCU was creamed so thats come off. However this weekend did my mates and mine front and rear brakes.
what I noticed was you had to really be careful setting the adjusters as an imbalance would mean one wheel would still rotate.
So my advise would be to remove the drum and move the adjuster until the drum just goes on but binds, then remove and adjust it back 3-4 clicks, do both sides and it should work.
if it does not then perhaps as has been said above it an incorrect cable.
other thing we found was the cylinders corrode and it bends the back plate, both cars were the same and you can see this without removing anything as the bleed screw hex has moved into the back plate meaning you cannot bleed the system and I had to undo and rotate the backplate so I could grind off the heads of the bolts to remove the cylinder.