Originally Posted by spiralarms
For those waiting on tenterhooks (not) I did finally get the car through its MOT through the week.
I changed the parking shoes for genuine Volvo ones, replaced the springs, disassembled the expander (which was fine) and re-greased it.
Did the bedding in procedure, re-adjusted at both the console and in-shoe adjusters.
Took it for its retest, an older chap stuck it on the rolling road, and pretty much came straight back saying "nope". He hadn't put it through the system, and gave me a chance to tweak the adjusters a bit more (I went prepared for that).
Did some adjustments, a younger guy came out, took the car on the rolling road, and this time it was fine. He did say he really had to stamp on the footbrake, and suggested that the previous older guy perhaps hadn't pushed as hard, but given that I'd also adjusted things, who knows!
I noticed that on the wall above the bay there were various numbers. After the first "nope" they were 70 and 90 on the left and right (with another number in the middle, but I didn't pay attention to that one), on the official retest the were both over 200, something like 220 and 250 perhaps. I'm presume they are some sort of measurement of force applied to get the wheels to move after applying the parking brake.
Anyway, I'm obviously pleased, and I've backed off the adjustments a little, as drums were a bit hot after the drive home!
I contacted the DLVA/MOT people about my reading of the MOT manual regarding testing the parking brake on automatic cars with P on the gearbox (particularly section 1.1.6), apparently it has been referred upwards, I'm still waiting a response.
Just a comment on the foot pedal clicks thing. When mine just passed it took 8 or nine 9 clicks from the footpedal (I think 11 is the full travel). When I was looking at this at home, I had the armrest out so I could see the Y splitter. What I notice is that as I stamp on the peddle, to start with everything moves as you'd expect, but towards the end when I'm really applying some force to the peddle. The splitter barely moves, certainly not the amount it moves per click in the early part. My assumption then is that most of the "really stamping hard" clicks, are only resulting in stretching of the cable from the footpedal to the splitter.
Neil
For heck of it I've attached a couple of photos of the new shoe, in the drum and on the car.
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