J15 IVA fail :-(

[Paul AS]

Well I made it to Chadderton VOSA station for my J15 IVA at stupid o'clock this morning. The bad news is that it failed. The good news is that its only one item!!

Handbrake efficiency was 11% when it needed to 18% min. I've no idea how hard he pulled the lever as they sent me to the coffee room for an hour for some strange reason?

Spent the whole trip home pulling the handbrake lever on and off! I'll have a look to see if I can improve the pivot point on the lever and grease the cable and rear mechanisms over the next couple of days, then back for retest next Monday!

[jeffw]

Is it a case if running in the pads?

[Paul AS]

That will certainly help. However I have since discovered a large imbalance in the adjustment, which the tester pointed out this morning.

I've lubed it all up and made the appropriate adjustments to the balance.

Up on the axle stands, handbrake on, I could only just move the passenger side wheel a tiny bit by hand. The drivers side was relatively easy!! Adjustment way off between the two wheels. Easy to spot after the fact!!

Took all the offending covers off. Plenty of lithium grease on every moving part, WD40 down both ends of the handbrake cable dozens of times, more grease over the cable entry and exit points. Work in with handbrake lever until arm goes numb.

I've also realigned the sliding calliper "pins" so that they run smoother. I have to say that they are very basic. No seals. Just a metal pin into a blind metal hole with a rubber seal, one of which turns out to be knackered. Reconditioned calliper??

By my reckoning, after riding the handbrake on and off all the way home, and the same next Monday on the way back to the re-test, that should do it!

[deecee]

Paul here are the pics I mentioned on the Locost Forum.

Firstly I had to modify the upright


Then the caliper bracket was milled down


Then the caliper was modded by grinding a protrusion away.


Then I took some metal off the outer pad to prevent it fouling the disc bell and allowing it to engage with the bracket properly. It is shown here back to front before the mod.


I cannot remember if I turned the disc down a bit too

Hope that helps.
David

[Paul AS]

Thanks for that David,

mine are exactly the same as yours. It strikes me that the Sylva fabricated uprights have the holes / mounting lugs in the wrong place. The outer pad radius and disc radius should be identical!

When I'm talking to Jeremy i'll ask him why the uprights are like this. Unless they are pre-fabricated for some other application, they should match up.

Cheers

Paul

[NeilEverett]

My Mojo uses Fiesta XR2 front uprights on the rear, and for those I had to mod the caliper brackets and pads in a similar way, so I'm guessing that the fabricated uprights are just patterned off the fiesta uprights rather than being 'optimised' for the brake set up...?

[deecee]

As far as I know the fabricated uprights are "copies" of the Fiesta ones which were getting hard to come by. Seems a shame that JP did not design the fabricated upright to take the Sierra caliper, or other billet alloy alternatives, without mods and accommodate a bigger disc too like the independent rear ended Fury etc. By the way, since looking I see that I did get the disc diameter turned down.

[Paul AS]

Clarification from JP - As already mentioned, the upright is a fiesta copy and is not customised for the Sierra caliper. This compromise has existed for years and Jeremy is satisfied that it works well but does say that he could change the mounting lug size and position to suit the Sierra calliper. The implication was that this was not high on the agenda.

On another interesting note, the Sierra calliper carrier is still available directly from Ford at an eye watering £107 plus vat each. Very rare second hand now.

[Paul AS]

That should read J15 IVA PASS now. In and out in 10 minutes, IAC in hand and straight to DVLA office - and wait!!

Happy days!! Stoneleigh hopefully, Le Mans definitely!!

[dopdog]

Well done Paul you must be very happy.