1988 Mondial Parking Break Info

I'll take a shot at this, since no one has answered yet. I THINK that your 1988 Mondial should have ABS and should have a parking brake system that looks like the 348 system shown here. Please correct me ASAP if I'm wrong, we don't want the "newbie" to be misinformed!

There are two ways to adjust the handbrake. The mechanism uses shoes in a drum inside the rear rotors. These shoes can be adjusted using starwheel #16 in the diagram, through a hole in the rotor face. But be VERY careful if you do this, if you adjust them too tight they are a bear to back off. I'd leave this to a professional if you're not experienced.

The other, more common, method is to adjust the cable. Assuming that your car has left hand drive, look under the car just in front of the LR wheel, and you will see the cable and adjusting mechanism as shown in the diagram. You release the handbrake, back off the locking nut to free the adjusting nut (the two #12 in the illustration) and turn in the adjusting nut (clockwise) to tighten the cable. It is correct when you have four or five clicks when you activate the lever. Adjust to suit, retighten the locking nut, check for lever operation, and you're done. It wouldn't be a bad idea to jack up the rear tires and make sure that nothing is dragging when the lever is released.

Disclaimer: Anything less than 100% effectiveness is not acceptable when dealing with your brakes. If you are not totally comfortable with your ability to perform this adjustment, DON'T DO IT! Take it to a professional.

 

Firstly slacken off nuts 12 and 13,then ajust no 16 on n/s and o/s though the disc,then re ajust 12-13 back up,if its still a crap handbrake strip off the discs and inspect the shoes and the inner drum section of the disc for corrosion,

Dale.

 

Dale's description is the correct sequence to follow to do the job properly. In theory, the handbrake shoes should never wear unless you use the handbrake to slow the car down, or you accidentally drive the car with the handbrake on. If you use it just to hold the car in place, as a parking brake, it should never need adjustment of the starwheel. But I would recommend that the rear rotors should be removed and the handbrake inspected from time to time, say every 12,000 miles. It's not difficult.

If the handbrake shoes are correctly adjusted, then the only time you would need to adjust the cable would be to correct for stretch in the cable over time. Part #13 isn't a lock nut, it's the "anchorage" for the cable. Here is a closeup of the cable adjuster.

If your handbrake is correctly adjusted and still doesn't work well, then there may be corrosion in the drum as Dales suggests.

 

The hand brake shoes were never adjusted at the factory. It was supposed to be done at the PDI but I still see a large percentage of the cars out there that have not been done in the mistaken belief that only adjusting the cable will do it. I adjust the shoes on every major service and as correctly pointed out they don't really wear but still many cars are way off. You have to back the cable adjuster way off, Remove wheels and through the hole adjust the starwheel until it firmly locks the axle from turning then back it off about 5 or 6 clicks. When that is done you can adjust the cable to give you the correct handle travel. One way the starwheels turn easily the other they do not. If you look through the hole with a flashlight you can see a spring that in one direction binds the starwheel, just use a hook shaped scribe to pull the spring away from the starwheel when you need to turn it in that direction.