Ford Escort MK4 - Handbrake lamp lights up under braking

[escort86]

Hi,

I have a MK4 Escort (1986 - 90) with a issue with handbrake dashboard light.

The light does not light up when the handbrake is on. However, it lights up when under heavy braking or braking down hill. It goes off after I start moving off after stopping under such braking conditions.

Any one seen this before.

[suffolkpete]

Is your car fitted with pad wear indicators? They usually share a warning lamp with the handbrake, so perhaps the pads are worn. Also check the fluid level in the reservoir. The failure of the lamp to light when the handbrake is applied could be a separate fault.

[kevin]

Weird earth fault?

Kev

[JPB]

The Escort of this age has one lamp for pad wear sensor function (when fitted) and the fluid level, the parking brake telltale is supplied separately and is switched only by the pin switch under the lever. Usual cause of the parking brake lamp coming up when you're driving is that someone has adjusted the parking brake travel at the cables (without taking the shoes up first, which is the proper way to do it).
This happens because the shoes, instead of being adjusted evenly, are low within the drum, but still under tension because of the cable being over adjusted. Lots of garages these days won't do this properly because they erroneously believe that "self-adjusting" shoes will adjust themselves when in practice, it means that the person working on the system has to do the adjustment by him or her self.
To correct this, simply disconnect the cable from its lever at each rear backplate and then adjust the shoes up with the cable not connected. Then, when the shoes are set so that they can be heard scuffing very slightly in a few places when the drum is spun by hand - with the hub and wheel attached - re connect the cable ends to the parking brake levers at the backplates and DO NOT adjust them by the cables, which you may have to ease back before you can get the ends into their levers. With the shoes correctly adjusted, the parking brake can provide at least 100% of the effort recorded by the service brake quite easily on this and it should do so at around four clicks without binding when released.
You may need a new switch for the telltale after doing these things but you may be able to bend the leaves in the fixed contact back into a near horizontal position and that will give you a lamp that comes up only when the parking brake is applied.