Hi,
I just want to bounce a diagnostic off fellow tinkerers. I'm fairly sure this is a stretched rear left handbrake cable.
Purchased the car THEN noticed the handbrake wouldn't hold on steep inclines. No adjustment made any difference, just the handbrake travel changed. Checked the pads, well worn, probably 1mm at most. No worries. Ordered new pads figuring that resetting the callipers (by winding them back in) may be an easy fix. Came to do the pads, noticed rear left calliper was newish (still had the sticker on it) but the right side was seized solid. Ordered a new calliper. Fitted the new RHS calliper & pads on both sides... still poor handbrake performance.
Now my thinking is that someone had recently taken it to a shop for the handbrake and the shop had noticed the left wasn't braking very well so replaced the calliper, misdiagnosing the seized RH calliper, and because of this the LH cable has been stretched. When under the car I can see the LH cable pulls the handbrake lever twice as far as the RH does (both move freely by hand, I can verify as I accidentally would them back in a few times and had to wind them out again). Additionally you can see in the pic LH side is far further forward than RH side. Callipers seizing and stretching cables seem fair common, I have the cable ready to go but will need to pay a shop to swap it as I don't want the hassle without access to a ramp.
Cheers!
Edit, that pic looks like it's resting, ie handbrake OFF. But its around the same angle when the handbrake is applied. It was like this before and after swapping the calliper. FWIW yes I bled the brakes and pumped the foot pedal hard before applying the handbrake after swapping the calliper. Pretty standard stuff.
