I had a stab at doing the rear brakes on the focus, I had a bit of a

nightmare with it to be honest. This focus has rear discs not the usual

drum.

The caliper comes off happily, the carriers comes off happily, pads out with

a little wiggling. New discs went on fine, carrier back on, I put the pads

on amd I *attempted* to get the caliper back on (in the rewound state of

course) and I had a pig of a time to get the notch on the piston to line up

with the notch on the pad. With much mucking about I got it on and it sits

neatly with the piston right up on the disc. Its hard to see sometimes in

certain angles that the notch is in the cut on out the piston. Is there a

simpler way to do it next time ?

Seems a weird design I have only every encounted systems by where you just

chuck the pads on :) and bolt up. But this fiddly notch business has added 4

more grey hairs by my count to me lol.

After thats all on I spine the dics and it makes a contact noise as its

hitting thought the caliper, I thought maybe disc wobble as all thats

holding it is a retaining clip so thought I'll spin again once the wheel is

back on and still the noise. It does have a coating on it that will rub off

after you drive and brake a bit so I thought it might settle down after

thats off and it beds in a bit ?... to add the passenger side spins a lot

more free than the drivers rear. Any ideas what I should look for ?

So far I took it for a 2 miles drive very short, car brakes perfectly fine.

As it was dark now I took a light to see the material on the discs has

started coming off. I didn't get a chance to jack it up again and spin it to

see. Perhaps its a case of driving it for a while and see how it goes.

The other headache with this job was the handbrake cable, well the passenger

rear went on fine, a pain to get off but I was expecting that getting it

back on was fine. The drivers rear was a !Removed!, got it off, a bit harder

than the other side but hey ho, come to get it back on it was as hard to get

on as off. I used a large screwdriver to lever the mechanism to get the

handbrake "hook" back over the arm. The hanbrake was off :) ... is there

some kind of method to this ?

For such a common hatchback I thought it was be a simple to service car,

well brake wise but I spent about 3/4 inc setting up on it and a few brakes.

Usually takes about 30 mins a side for me on previous cars.

On the bright side its back together and drivable :)

Advice welcome.

Hi soulman123,

I think it would have helped to release handbrake cable adjustment

regards ccharlie