Capri - Redlands Australia Day Rally 2019

Another good morning at the Redlands Australia Day Rally and this year the weather was pretty kind.
We even won a raffle which made it even better! There are always a huge range of very diverse cars at this event as the photos will show. Only one Capri this year but a lot of small & big Fords.



Click on the pics to enlarge.

Capri - Parking Brake at last

I have tried numerous times to get the parking brake on my white XL to actually hold. Every time I think the adjustment is correct, it just fails to hold. After thinking it might be the cable, I bought a new cable from the UK but that did not solve the problem either. I tried both the adjustments, the main cable & the rear cable but still it would not hold.
After having a good look with the brake fully on, I noticed that the main bracket attached to the axle housing was actually catching on the diff filler plug & this was preventing it being fully extended. (See the photo below)

 

My first thought was to see if the diff plug could be screwed in any further but after removing it and re inserting it, that was not the way to go as the plug was in as far as it would go.

Next idea was to insert a longer washer/spacer on the main cable so that I could get more adjustment at that point. (The last photo shows a small black pipe added before the main adjuster washer.) This still did not solve the problem as the brake was still not quite holding. It was nearly there but not quite!

Next idea was to try to shorten the rear cable between the two wheels by inserting a small metal collar (about 1 cm long) on the cable before the attaching bracket on the non- adjusting side. The collar was  from a metal building plug and was crimped onto the cable. (See the photos below.)

 

 

Just by shortening the cable by this small amount required me to slacken off the adjusting side and the rear cable was quite taut with the hand brake released. Then the test! I applied the parking brake & immediately noted that the adjustment had worked & the bracket was not catching on the diff plug. In fact, I had to slacken the adjuster off several time to get the interior brake lever at a reasonable height.
(Here is a photo with the final adjustment done. Note the difference between the bracket & the diff plug compared to the original position.)

 

With a few applications in the garage, it appears that the park brake is holding well, at last! I hope when I do a road test it also passes the test.

(To enlarge the photos, click on them)