Hi all,

A while ago, I changed the rear discs on my 2001 9-3 (drum-in-disc
handbrake). Not long after, I noticed that the handbrake on one side
would sometimes grab momentarily a couple of times if I had to reverse
at the start of a journey. Today, I finally got round to having a look
at it.

If I jack the wheel up and spin it with the handbrake off, it spins
freely, but if I pull the handbrake on enough to make it rub a bit,
then the wheel grinds round fine if I spin it slowly, but grabs if I
try to spin it faster.

The handle seems to start operating the brakes at about the right
point in it's travel, but looking at the shoes, they seem to be some
distance from their end-stops with the handbrake released, and there's
still some tension in the cable.

My favorite theory at the moment, is that the shoe adjusters are set
too far in, and the cable adjuster has been shortened to compensate,
leaving the shoes at a bit of an angle. I ran out of daylight whilst
looking at it today, so I couldn't do the full adjustment, but I wound
up the shoe adjuster a bit to try to ease the problem. I'm still
waiting to see if it's made any difference...

So, am I on anything like the right track here, and a full
shoes-then-cable adjustment will sort it out, or do I need my head
examining again?

Cheers,

Colin.