how do you adjust handbrake on a peugeot 406 v reg

eoin, March 2007

I have 406 2.0 hdi 90 disk rear brake. The side cables fray/wear where they chafe at the mid-mounting points and then cable outers rust which makes handbrake less efective .
I have just been through all this 3 new cables,shoes,degrease - still rubbish , and ended up building up the handbrake shoe expander mechanism with a bit of weld.
The expander is what the cable fits into and is maybe only 2mm thick on each side of the pivot point - where it wears. Also it wears at the ends where the shoes fit on. The trouble is that you cannot really tell how worn it is - unless you compared it next to a new one !
If you can move it up and down between the shoes with cable relaxed I guess you have some wear.
If you build the expander up too much you can simply cut the brake shoe slots deeper which are a bit shallow anyway.- using thin cutting disk/angle grinder until the shoes touch/nearly touch the stop on the backing plate. If it's too big the disk won't fit !!!
When the handbrake cable is pulled the expander only moves a few mm, so wear in the expander has a noticable affect and clearly the harder you pull the hand brake more wear occures.
My local dealer closed lately so I haven't found out how much these parts cost.

I know this is a zombie thread but I hope this helps someone. My 406 has 227k and got 195 on each side 26% - it struggled to get 80 when it failed and got (40 and 195) on 2nd try then 2 x 195 after weld.

DaveJ, September 2016

Did anyone manage to reach or exceed the 15% required for the MOT? So far 11% is my highest score.

I suspect that the brake shoe material is too hard. Possibly getting new high friction material bonded onto ones old brake shoes might cure the problem but this is so much hassle.

Incidentally OEM does NOT always mean the best as it might be that the vehicle manufacturer ordered a vast amount of Woolworths quality parts. I heard about a huge order of shock absorbers where it was dictated that the all important valve block was to be made from "monkey metal" instead of bronze. The result was an expected life of 10,000 miles instead of 50,000 miles.

Davey1000, July 2013

The handbrake uses brake shoes and the brake drum is built into the rear disc. Unfortunately these brakes are rather small and would be more suited to a small motorcycle. The shoes have a brake expander AND a brake adjuster. The adjuster needs to be manipulated (easier said than done!) It may be possible to let small bulbs or LEDs into the brake drum using the wheel bolt holes. If this is done it may be possible to see the adjuster and adjust it by levering with a screwdriver.

The other way of doing the job is to (1) Remove caliper. (2) Remove disc/drum. (3) Adjust the adjuster until the drum will only just go back on.

IMHO the design is poor as even with new brake shoes and new disc-drums it is quite difficult to attain a brake force of 15% of the car's mass which is the UK MOT requirement.

Looking on the bright side the repair cost for a faulty ELECTRIC handbrake, as used on the newer cars, can be many hundreds of pounds.

Davey1000, July 2013

help. pull handbrake up to max but wont hold car. garage said if they tighten cable any more brake will be on continueous.car is pugoet 406

apple, May 2012

the above answer is correct but you need to reverse the direction of turning the adjusters on the LHS and RHS

paul and rob g, June 2011

Hi,
I have just tried the knurled wheel adjusters behind the rear discs and now my handbrake cable is very firm indeed!

Mark R, January 2010

Not an answer but a question. On my 406 estate the shoes and cables have all been replaced and adjusted by the previous owner, and still the handbrake performs very poorly. Barely scraped through the MOT. Can anybody suggest how to improve it?

Denis, July 2009

everything has been repalced, cables and shoes and adjusted many times. still not agreat handbrake. has anyone come across this with the 406

patrick, June 2009

It is the brake shoes that wear not the cable. Adjusting the cable may be seen as a "Cowboy fix". The brakes are not self adjusting and are not expected to have much wear, but if the handbrake has not been released fully whilst on the move at some time, the shoes wear and need adjusting.
To do this the car need to have both rear wheels removed SUPPORTED ON AXEL STANDS, FRONT WHEELS CHOCKED, then in the center of the disks is the drum for the auxailliary shoes for the hand brake. in the front face you see the 4 holes for the wheel studs, 2 torx screws that retain the disk/drum assembly and a rubber plug.
Pull out the rubber plug and rotate it so the hole is directly at the oposite side to the disk pads, this will be toward the front of the car and up a bit.
Using a small torch and a mediun flat blade screwdriver look in and locate a toothed wheel, with the handbrake off rotate the wheel to lock the disk/drum solid then back 1 click. (on the LHS move the screwdriver toward the center of the hub and outward on the RHS) Then operate the handbrake a few times to centeralise the brakes in their new position. REPEAT the PROCESS, untill you have got best adjustment with no tightness on the drums as you spin the wheel with the handbrake off. I found I needed to do it about 3 times each side, then with 1 click back on the lhs and 2 clicks back on the rhs, to get free turning wheels at both sides. This then brought the hand brake back to its origional position. I found best way to get the rubber plugs back was to spit on them first!

Pedro, August 2008

At the back, under the boot, where the cable does a T junction IE: one cable from the handbrake one to a wheel and one to the other wheel, there's an adjuster. Two 10mm nuts locked together, loosen the outer one tighten the inner one, until your handbrake handle goes up three or four clicks then re-lock the two nuts together. Straight forward job, 1 minute in time £50.00 saved

Raysagem, December 2007