Tryed to leave this morning and i could'nt my wheels pointing straight hand break of and foot of the breaks pointing up a steep hill. The car stood perfectly still, bit confused so i got out and checked around for any obvious failures. Got back in an tried again rock back and forth to see if it was just a bit stiff, still nothing happened, put it in reverse and applied light pressure to the accelerator and it was like reversing over a brick. rear left side lifted maybe 2 inches and a scraping of the tyre against the ground, got out and it had just dragged, applied heavy pressure still nothing but scraping. could'nt be doing my tyres any good so i avoided that for the minute The dick infront has left about a fingers gap between my bumper and his so i can't loosen them by going forward either. Been sitting there for 5 days and its been rainey and wet here so i can only conclude the breaks are stuck. Assuming the car infront has'nt moved by the time i return from college, whats the best way to unstick the breaks without finding the owner and asking him to move his car.
*Brakes Was there anything behind you? Best thing to do is make sure the mechanism is releasing properly and persevere with your current tactics. Otherwise just call out the AA/RAC unless you fancy dismantling. What car do you have?
Could be an airlock in the system, most brakes have a bleed nipple on the caliper. Unless it has a drum, what car is it? Is there fluid in the brake reservoir? But before all that I would try just rolling it forward first Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio using Tapatalk 2
Mine does this all the time, the rear drum brakes stick on you need to get some heavy mates to sit in the back then really give it some stick moving the car backwards and forwards you should hear a loud bang when they release so you will prob need the car in front moved. If that doesn't work its possible the pad has come off and you will need new rear pads.
Its a Corsa B 1.2 1999 i've been told that giving the rear drum a light tap with a hammer could be enough to loosen the breaks i'll have to knock the doors and find the owner of the car infront else im doing to be dragging my tyres a good half car distance to get any room to move. everything is clear behind me, or atleast was this morning nothing under the car to cause obstruction
I used to work in a car park where people left cars for weeks at a time and the brakes got stuck, a good hammer fixes it 99% of the time.
Airlock in a hydraulic system will just mean the brakes will be off. OP tried rolling it, without success. As it's drums, get the persuader out, give it a good clout. If that fails get in the boot and jump up and down.
Stamp on the brakes possibly as hard as you can a few times. The added pressure normally frees things up a little.
Used to happen to me all the time. Get a rubber mallet and whack the wheels that are stuck to free them and then get some brake cleaner from a car place and spray it on. That should work for now and when MOT time comes around let them fix it for the test
After giving full permission to my sister and niece to bounce around in the back and me shaking the car And finally 10-15 grumbling back and forths, seems to have loosened them up enough to get out of the space comfortably. Just took it for a spin and all is back to how it should be, shame about the surface of the road you can see trails i've taken out Its happened before in cold weather is there something i could do to prevent it happening again? i know its easily fixed but in this case i was already late and did'nt have the time to fix it before college.
Depending which way you're facing of course - uphill that doesn't work so well. If you are leaving the car for a few days park somewhere flatter with the handbrake on more gently, otherwise I suppose you're looking at work on the drums, but having never worked on them I don't know how much is possible. Discs all round are so much easier.
You need to get the rears apart to check condition and give them a good clean and adjust. It could be a partially seized pivot lever in drums. A good garage should be able to do this fairly quickly, depending on wether the drums come off easily or not. Usually I would quote around 1 to 1.5hrs labour.
I know you've resolved the problem now but this used to happen when I used to drive a (brand new) clio, with rear drums... if I remember correctly it depended upon which way the slope was, but going in the opposite direction to where there was the most resistance usually helped (in this case, forwards), as was suggested above!
If you want to service them yourself, have a look for an online guide. You'll need some axle stands to do it (safety first). There'll probably be a whole load of rust in there, which you can ged rid of with a wire brush. Take apart the moving parts, get rid of any rust and apply some copper grease. This should get things working nice and sooth, and keep them working. I serviced the rear handbrake shoes on my BMW last year. One was almost completely seized and it failed the MOT because of it. I had to spend a little on tools (axle stands and a decent socket set from Halfords, £120 in total), but that saved me garage costs and just allows me to do any future servicing. I've found that there are excellent picture guides for pretty much all basic to advanced servicing online. I found one to service my handbrake shoes as I said, one to fix my electric window with just a ziptie, one to replace and bleed brake pads, and one to replace the swirl flaps which can cause problems in diesel BMW engines (going to do that this summer, along with an oil change).
Dependant on car model watch out for the handbrake adjuster there little buggers to get working again. Also search around for a shop that's not halford you often pay double in there example I got a pack of 6 new tail light bulbs for 1.50 from a place called sbs in Wrexham
A good wack with a hammer will mostly loosen them up, as other people have said. May be worth heading to a Kwik-Fit and asking them to do a brake inspection - it was free back when I worked for them... Just hang about and make sure they take the brakes apart and put them back together again, that will mean that they have been greased nicely again for you
Halfords socket sets are top quality though, as good as they come for the price, and have lifetime warranties. It's often possible to pick them up on sale as well. They really are highly recommended by plenty of people (just search google). Almost everything else is overpriced though!
