Does anybody know if its a common problem in alfa 146s for the handbrake to freeze on? Car wouldn't move this morning and the handbrake lever was felt very loose, found 1 thread in google mentioning this and was wondering if anybody else had this problem or would it be more likely just to be a broken handbrake cable as i first suspected.
tony
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How long had the car been stood?
It could just be the brakes binding, the only soloution that we found with my mate's car is to jerk the clutch up which dislodges the brakes and then everything starts working normally again...
His handbrake felt very loose as well...
Blue
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I used to suffer from this with my XR2i. The back brakes would bind frozen, I'd release the handbrake and nothing would happen. My mechanic only suggested stripping the back brakes down and greasing etc. which would be quite costly in terms of time so I never bothered. I had to pour buckets of warm water over the back wheels and gently fwd / reverse the car until they came unstuck on many occasions. If I drove away before they had unbound the discs would glow red hot so I stopped doing that!
Sorry it is not a solution. Of course, the water unfreezes them but this contributes to re-freezing them the next day due to the retained moisture.
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The car was stood overnight, but it only does a short journey in the week, about a mile and a half.
Spoke to the alfa garage as the car is booked in on saturday for a diagnostic, just to make sure they could change the cable if necessary and the bloke confirmed it as a known glitch on certain alfa's that in cold weather, like last night, the brakes freeze on. He recommended letting it run for a bit to warm up the cable and parking it in gear rather than with the handbrake on over night.
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hm.. short journeys in wet weather. You may find disk calipers rusting too or pads to disc.
My solution: a quick 5 mile drive every 2 weeks preferably down a long fast hill applying brakes hard: clears rust/ warms brakes, removes moisture.
If you don't, discs score rapidly = much expense...
madf
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Oddly enough a friend of mine with a 145 had exactly the same problem this morning..... Might be worth leaving the car in gear in during the winter if possible rather than applying the handbrake.
teabelly
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Not sure if relevant to the more recent Alfas, but an old friend had a Silver Cloverleaf Sprint (stretched Alfasud?) which I think used inboard dics for the handbrake....these were particularly susceptable to getting wet then freezing and locking the handbrake solid.
Had to jolt them free more than once in a cold NE Durham winter
Ian L.
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