Its one of the rear calipers, the RH one looking at the photos, remove the cable from the operating levers and compare them, the good one will only move a small amount before clamping the disc, the other one will move through a very large angle.

 

It gets compounded often by the owner nipping up the cable to compensate meaning the defective one does not return to its stop for the self adjustment mechanism to work.

 

If you are lucky you will get it to self adjust by operating the lever by hand until it operates in a few degrees like the good one, set both cable adjusters equal, reconnect them to the brackets, adjust the cables equally making sure they can return to their stops and action the handbrake several times, the compensator should then be centralised.

15 hours ago, mac11irl said:

Hope the rain warning has cleared before you start, or you have a nice roomy shed to work in

 

My bosses father used to be a mechanic so he has a nice shed with a pit in it, along with a mountain of tools for every little thing!

13 hours ago, J.R. said:

Its one of the rear calipers, the RH one looking at the photos, remove the cable from the operating levers and compare them, the good one will only move a small amount before clamping the disc, the other one will move through a very large angle.

 

It gets compounded often by the owner nipping up the cable to compensate meaning the defective one does not return to its stop for the self adjustment mechanism to work.

 

If you are lucky you will get it to self adjust by operating the lever by hand until it operates in a few degrees like the good one, set both cable adjusters equal, reconnect them to the brackets, adjust the cables equally making sure they can return to their stops and action the handbrake several times, the compensator should then be centralised.

both of the levers on the calipers are moving the same distance. and both return to the stops when handbrake is disengaged.

So my weekend plans got somewhat derailed by the fact that on saturday as I was 120km into my 200km journey, the fan belt decided to split in half going from approx 2-3cm wide to only being 1cm wide, while the 1 cm section stayed sitting on the pulleys working away.

 

Somehow made it the rest of the journey and got it sorted, but my time i had allocated to the handbrake she had to be handed over to get that sorted. Very frustrating as i had been putting off replacing the fan belt as i have it booked in to do the timing belt in two weeks so I could have gotten them both done together.

It could be worse; when my fan belt went, it went completely, and driving an Octy with no PAS is a lot like having had arm failure!

Edited 12 August, 20196 yr by KenONeill

17 minutes ago, KenONeill said:

It could be worse; when my fan belt went, it went completely, and driving an Octy with no PAS is a lot like having had arm failure!

I can just imagine, friend of mine had an old mini cooper with no power steering and it was an eye opening experience to drive, can't imagine what the big bulky diesel would have been like!

18 hours ago, KenONeill said:

It could be worse; when my fan belt went, it went completely, and driving an Octy with no PAS is a lot like having had arm failure!

 

Try an insignia on fat 18" tyres, running on the battery, and no brake assist either like what happened when my belt came off because the tensioner was goosed. 

On 13/08/2019 at 11:48, mac11irl said:

Try an insignia

I have, and am still not convinced that the steering is actually connected to the front wheels!  

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

I have, and am still not convinced that the steering is actually connected to the front wheels!  

 

After 2 1/2 yrs in one i still wasnt sure

 

So finally got around to getting the cables replaced. All seems to be back to normal, see attached for offending problem, hidden behind the spring hence why I didn’t see it on initial inspection and only because evident when I got properly under the car.

 

also had my timing belt and alternator pulley replaced so I’m sitting on 472’000 km with a recently replaced fan belt, timing belt, alternator pulley, and a new clutch and flywheel within the last 2 years, so she should keep me going for another while at least!

 

NCT/MOT on Monday so hopefully no nasty surprises there!!