Morris Minor Owners Club

All of a sudden my handbrake keeps sticking on, burning brakes at first, now just a very weak handbrake when actually on. I read my Haynes manual which said use plusgas. Where's the best place to squirt it.

There are two grease nipples in the cables underneath. They should be roughly either side of the rear diff propshaft joint. Make sure you inject grease in here as part of your regular greasing ritual.

A ha!!! Now it all makes sense.

If the cables are the cause of your sticky handbrake then it is a good idea to start by injecting rear axle oil first into the nipples. Some cables do not have nipples. the other reason for the sticking could be that the
'sliding' action on the brake shoes is seized up(if you remove the drums
you should be able to slide the shoes up and down at the wheel cylinder
end as they sit in a groove) if you cannot,then clean the slot area until
you can. This is assuming that the actual rear wheel cylinder is free to retract after you have applied the brakes. i.e. if this dragging problem only occurs after handbrake use and not after footbrake use then yes.
you would appear to have cable problems.

It won't be the cables - the cylinders will be seized up, and now the shoes will have been 'burned' and need replacing too. Complete strip down and check time - but be prepared with two new cylinders + new shoes, and yes - oil/grease the cables before you fit the new parts, and slacken the cable adjusters right off, then only tighten them up again after you have all the new parts back on the car and the brakes have been bled and fully adjusted at the drums.

The rear cylinders are your problem...they need to slide on the backplate,,,...also, if you have not been using grease on the handbrake cable as part of your regular maintenace...then that too wont be helping your problem. Another thing, dont fit these cables that dont have grease nipples, if you have one of those fitted, then when you come to replace it, make sure the next one has nipples...the others are not worth the money...same goes for ball joints.

When I replaced my rear cylinders I couldn't get the brake pipes off. They can be feckers to separate so be warned.

I disconnected the rigid brake pipes at the T piece on the axle (look underneath you'll see what I mean)and carefully fed them through the hole in the backplate where the cylinder came out of.
Once you've got it all out its then easier to get the pipe off by turned the whole cylinder. Then re-fit the pipes to the car and replace the cylinders.
Its fiddly and you'll need one person under the car to straighten the pipe and feed it through whilst the other carefully pulls the cylinder and pipe out.

With any luck you wont have these problems, I post this to let you know what's possible in the worst case!
It'll all be obvious when you're looking at them.

Do what I did, drop the 2 bolts out of the cylinder, pull it through an inch then hold the pipe nut and turn the cylinder. No need to disconnect it at the tee ;)

You mean I went through an afternoon of hell, filling the swearbox many times over - for nothing?
That's the kind of obvious inspiration that only hits you when you take a tea break and calm down.

The rear cylinders arent bolted on (fronts are)- they move freely. The answer for me was to buy a good quality brake spanner- My Sykes Pickavant 7/16" (and I forget the size at the other end) brake spanner is a thick ring spanner with a brake pipe sized gap, so it fits through the brake pipe and being a hexagon, each face grips the union. Never rounded a brake fixing off yet- and it also works on my 944 brake fixings to my surprise (7/16" is the same as 11mm).

The other end of the flexible hoses are a Whitworth size- so get some open ended Whit spanners as well.

Spend a few quid and save the afternoons swearing!
Personally I find buying new tools addictive

Which is why I have 5 tool boxes/bags in various cars and garage !