Hand brake cable

S1 hand brake cable replacement:

Removal:

• Jack up one side of the car and remove the centre section of undertray
• Chock the front wheels and put an axle stand under jacking point C
• Do the same for the other side of the car
• Undo the two 17mm adjustment nuts that are half-way along each side of the old cable.
• You should now have enough slack to remove the pin that attaches the rear section of cable to the cable that goes into the cabin (it's got one of those gay little safety clips on it that you have to take off with a screwdriver)
• Wiggle the ends of the cable that are attached to the brake calipers and undo the hose clips that hold the cable to the wishbones (10mm nut)
• The old cable should now no longer be attached to your car, unless there are some tie-wraps on it, so cut them off and chuck the old cable out

Replacement:

• Take the new cable and lay it roughly where the old one was, making sure that it goes in between the gear-selection cable/throttle cable and the floor of the car
• Pull back the rubber bit near the 17mm adjustment nuts and loosely refit them
• Put the hose clips back on and loosely reattach them to the wishbones
• Thread the cable ends back into the calipers
• Realign the big metal crescent with the hole on the section of cable that enters the cabin and refit the pin and clip
• Now it's time to adjust the cable, you'll need to use a pair of spanners, or a spanner and some mole-grips to tighten the nuts
  • You should adjust the cable so that it's tight when the hand brake lever is on the floor
  • When you've adjusted it correctly you shouldn't be able to lift the lever more than 6 clicks without feeling like you're going to break something
  • I think you can make it tighter than that without causing the brakes to bind, but I don't really know what I'm on about so played it safe
• Make sure that the cables are touching the wishbones and not flapping about near the wheels (use tie-wraps if necessary to hold them in place)
• When you've tightened everything up drop the car off the stands, put the undertray back on and get yoursen to MacDonald's car park!