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handbrake adjustment, how many ratchet clicks?


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Just so, Marco.

When our cars are taken for the annual test, a trick played by

older mechanics was to ask the young apprentice to sit in the car and  operate the

handbrake, knowing that they would not know what to do!

John.

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2 hours ago, Nigel Triumph said:

Spitfires also had fly-off handbrakes until 1967.  My early Mk3 has one, though the 1968 Spit I owned in my teens had a conventional handbrake.

Nigel

Fly off handbrakes are I think a bit of a gimmic! They are awkward to apply as you can never be 100% certain the ratchet has actually gripped !

When a co-driver used my car we got stuck quite a few times at traffic lights and moving away from parking whilst he wrestled with the ‘broken’ handbrake.

Had it been the start of a race we would’ve come last.

However both set-ups are preferable to my daily Zafira which has an electronic button which can very easily be forgotten !

Kevin

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8 minutes ago, boxofbits said:

Fly off handbrakes are I think a bit of a gimmic! They are awkward to apply as you can never be 100% certain the ratchet has actually gripped !

When a co-driver used my car we got stuck quite a few times at traffic lights and moving away from parking whilst he wrestled with the ‘broken’ handbrake.

Had it been the start of a race we would’ve come last.

However both set-ups are preferable to my daily Zafira which has an electronic button which can very easily be forgotten !

Kevin

Agreed not so good purely as a parking brake. However not a gimmick for rallying, practically vital there even though the vertical type not easy to get hold of when you're strapped in, hence serious players move theirs to the transmission tunnel (on my list of future mods for my 4). And for general driving I find the fly-off handbrake really nice for hill starts in traffic: just pull on, hold, then ease off without touching the button at all.

Nigel

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I never realized how useful a fly-off handbrake was until the time I lost my brakes doing 50 mph in traffic. While driving with my wife on a busy two lane secondary road, I could see a traffic light turning red up ahead, so I went to apply my brakes to start slowing dow. The pedal went right to the floor! I was able to modulate the handbrake to gently slow and stop the car. Afterwards I kept thinking that if I had ratchet style, there would have been a greater chance to lock the brakes, especially in that first ”oh sh*t” moment. The funny thing is, earlier that year I had contemplated getting the ratchet style conversion kit from Revington.

Jim

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On 11/1/2020 at 1:06 PM, Tr4aJim said:

I never realized how useful a fly-off handbrake was until the time I lost my brakes doing 50 mph in traffic. While driving with my wife on a busy two lane secondary road, I could see a traffic light turning red up ahead, so I went to apply my brakes to start slowing dow. The pedal went right to the floor! I was able to modulate the handbrake to gently slow and stop the car. Afterwards I kept thinking that if I had ratchet style, there would have been a greater chance to lock the brakes, especially in that first ”oh sh*t” moment. The funny thing is, earlier that year I had contemplated getting the ratchet style conversion kit from Revington.

Jim

Why? You could just keep your thumb on the button of a regular hand brake lever.

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2 hours ago, Andy Moltu said:

Why? You could just keep your thumb on the button of a regular hand brake lever.

Well it’s one less thing, when your busy trying to slow down, moving to the shoulder, and avoiding cars, all while trying to keep a “nothing to worry about” look on your face for your passenger. Plus if your thumb slips off, most ratchets require you to raise the handle to release it, which can be quite the surprise to the car behind you.

Jim

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