Superb 2 Handbrake Cables

Handbrake cable replacement isn't too hard but I found establishing the access to cable routing and lever base a speculative process as I couldn't find a single thread with a concise guide, but thanks to the forum for the snippets I was able to piece together while on the job.

Handbrake Lever - sitting in the back open the ashtray, grab the door and give it a good pull. Two points of caution:

1, you are not pulling the tray off the hinge, you are extracting the entire ashtray hinge and its own little intermediate housing, so don't fight the hinge at the base or the limiting lugs at the top.

2, it looks like there is allowance for a little light in the ashtray in some cars, so be careful not to yank the ashtray so hard that you damage the light cables when the thing releases.

Cable Routing - this is accessed from under the car (there is nothing to see under the seats!), by removing the fuel tank cover on each side. 3x T25 bits and a 10mm retained plastic nut.  The plastic nut and T25s on the rear of the sill and the leading edge of cover came out no bother, on mine both of the T25s that go into the rear subframe were very corroded, one sheared. Unlike the other two which are self tappers into plastic inserts, this one is a fine thread into a steel insert. Could someone please post the part nums for the insert and screw - It's probably worth being prepared with replacements before starting the job.  Once you have these covers off you can access the point the handbrake cables penetrate the centre of the rear footwells, the spring clips below the mid-point of the back doors, and the eyehole on the 'trailing arm' close to the wheel arch. Dont put your face under the covers when they come down, they are full of stones and grit.

Caliper/Wheel arch - nothing too tricky at this area, the main thing is that the auto adjustment is internal to the caliper, so a couple of things:

1, if you suspect a sticky cable, it would be easy to diagnose by disconnecting the cable from caliper mech and checking range/ease of movement (I was thinking about the cables on my mk2 golf where the pretension for taking slope out the handbrake was in a spring in the cable sheath that had to be kept in tension).

2, if you had stretched cables I suspect you may have to remove and wind piston back in enough to get the new cable fitting.  This will likely be a total faff if you are avoiding replacement of aged discs and pads....

3, It is use of hydraulic system that takes out slack in cable mech, and it apparently takes a bit of time to settle.

Hope this is helpful...

Andrew