Handbrake help needed - rear callipers

[Butcher]

MOT time. And the verdict is not good. Mostly fixable stuff, so that's good. But one of my main concerns is 'Offside rear parking brake recording little or no effort'.

 

I actually noticed this myself last week when I was working on the exhaust, I was able to spin the wheel freely with the handbrake applied. It just doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. 

 

From what I know this is a common problem with the Civic. In fact I'm pretty sure I even posted about the handbrake performance once before (although I can't find the post now). All callipers have been serviced by myself within the past year. I removed the rust from the callipers themselves so that the pads could moved freely, and I think I serviced the sliders on the rears too. 95% certain.

 

Tell me there is some way to fix this relatively quickly and easily, preferably without forking out £100s on new brakes.   

 

Discs are also reported to be 'excessively fluctuating', but I'm guessing that's completely unrelated. 

[Krzys]

It could just need the handbrake cable tightening? I can find the how to for that if you need it.

[noodels]

Need to adjust by rotating the pistons with a flat inserted in,do both sides of car to equal efficiency

adjustments are done there and not cables.

google it or is on here somewhere

[Krzys]

  On 2/20/2015 at 12:55 PM, noodels said:

Need to adjust by rotating the pistons with a flat inserted in,do both sides of car to equal efficiency

adjustments are done there and not cables.

google it or is on here somewhere

Both ways are here somewhere, it depends if there's slack in the cable or not which is what I was getting at.

[Butcher]

Tightened the cable not long back. Found some interesting stuff last night about the auto-adjustment on the handbrake though, which seems to have cured issues for a lot of people. I need to take the callipers off to fit the discs anyway, so will take a look at them and re-do the handbrake cable at the same time. If it works I shall be reporting back.  

 

Anything I need to know about before fitting the discs? It's a new job for me...

[Krzys]

Only thing I can think of is the rear caliper pistons wind in rather than just push in. Otherwise it's straight forward.

[Butcher]

Yeah, I've done the pads before. Learnt about the pistons the hard way! 

[noodels]

Re-loosen cable

do caliper adjustments with new disc

now re-adjust cable

[Butcher]

So......how the **** do you get these discs off? 

[Krzys]

I used an impact driver on the grub screws.