How to tighten handbrake?
 

Hi. I went drifting a few weeks ago and used the handbrake quite a bit. Towards the end of the day, the handbrake wasn't biting too well, which could also have been due to me overheating the rear brakes (I know I need to work on weight shifting). In any case, I have to pull it rather high just to get it to bite when parking. Does anyone know how to tighten it?

Thanks

Sounds like you probably cooked the emergency brake shoes. If so then new shoes is the only effective cure. The emergency brake on these cars is a drum brake inside the rear hub. It's pretty powerful as I expect you discovered. Nobody reminds us to bed these shoes in as for the service brake because it isn't usually used for actually braking, except on cars like these! I recommend anyone with a car with separate brake linings for the emergency brake try to bed them in before flogging them. It is simple to do, just apply the emergency brake, on and off several times occasionally while driving, over a period of weeks. Bedding in the shoe lining early will protect it somewhat from overheating in sessions like the one you describe.

If you pay a mechanic to fix this then just fit new shoes. If you DYI and your labour isn't really important to you, i.e. you like doing the work or you don't mind spending the time, then as long as the brake shoe lining is not vitrified (looks mottled and a bit glass like) you can sometimes restore glazed brake lining with coarse emery cloth and then bed them in again after refitting. Trouble with that is if it doesn't work you do the brake job again and fit new shoes.

Haven't had them in my hand to look, but if the shoes are anything like other cars with a mini-drum e-brake setup, they're small and thin meaning you've probably worn them out as they weren't designed for what you're doing...

The stock shoes are quite thin, only a few mm of friction material on them.

Slightly different issue, but does anyone know which way to rotate the emergency brake tension cog to tighten the E-Brake?

I recently replaced my rotors, and while I was struggling to get the rears off I played around with the E-Brake tension to try and make them easier to remove (I eventually succumbed to the sledge hammer method). Anyways, once I had everything back together, I clearly didn't have the tension set quite as tight as it was originally. I have to pull the e-brake right to the top to prevent the car from rolling on an incline, and even then I feel like its just holding.