when applying rear brakes with hand lever, not much braking is going on, when adjusting wingnut, brake lever gets really hard to pull, foot brake is working fairly well it will lock wheels up when pressing down on it, but hand brake wont lock up tires it will just slow you down. I have sanded brake shoe and drum but could not tell any difference. There appears to be plenty of brake pad left on shoe, also I had replaced hand brake cable. Any ideas on how to get hand brake to work any better?

 

Gary After reading your post again and reading my reply again i have redited my reply i see you said it was the rear brake hand lever that is giving you the trouble i need to ask you if the front brake hand lever does the same way/thing , or does it work good ? If the answer is yes then it doesn.t have air in the brake cylinders after all ; because the left hand brake lever doesn't operate the Hydraulics like the right haand brake lever does and again if the right hand brake lever work's good then the brake Hydraulics are working and doesn't need bleeding after all ! And since the left hand brake cable has been replaced you might've gotten the new cable in a bind making it hard to slide through the outer cable housing , and the foot brake work's enough to stop the quad ; and will even lock up the rear wheel then it would be the rear brake's that need;s worked on ! The rear brake doesn't work off the Hydraulic system and doesn't have a rear wheel clinder , it just work's machanicly insead and most people that have leg's ( In my case i lost both leg's just below the knee's in 1975 in an automobile accident while i was trying to help a friend push his Dad's car out of the road with he had ran of of gas , another car came up behind me and i didn't have time to get out of the road and was caught between the bumpers cutting off both my legs on the spot so i always used the hand brakes only ) but since you checked the rear brake shoe's and they had enough brake linning then this isn't the case ; and you will have to pull the rear wheel and drum and inspect the movement of drum brake lever ! Since you used your foot brake alot you were only useing the the rears to stop the quad the rear brake's aren's worn out ! It's the lever that work's brake's has some corrosion that's causing the lever that apply's the rear brake's need a good cleaning and lubrcating to get it to work freely ! so you won't have to do any brake bleeding after all , but all the brake;s front and rear should be inspected and given a good cleaning anyway , and these instruction's for bleeding the Hydraulic system can be kept for future refference ! So i would keep and save this reply in your Document's on your PC for a future refference to be used: As the instructions if and when you need them unless you trade or sell the quad before you need this information ! But here are the instruction's for bleeding the brake cylinder's anyway, so you will have them if ever you need them ! ................When You Need The Instruction's For Bleeding The Mastercylinder , Wheelcylinder's on Brake's , Either The Mastercylinder , Wheelcylinder's Or Brake Line's Are Building Up Air In Them ; Making It Harder To Stop With The Hand Brake Lever ! The reason the foot brake still works is because it work's with a cable to apply the rear brake's Machanically Instead of the Hydraulic system , what you need to do is bleed the brake line's ;starting with the wheel cylinder that is closest to the mastercylinder ! That would be the right front wheel cylinder . then the left front side but the right rear Brakes don't have a wheel cylinder , the only thing you will need to do to the rear is to get brake lever working freely ; and inspect the cable you replaced to make sure it's not binding causing stress on the hand brake lever! The Same thing happened tomy my 93'Suzuki when it was replaced trying to run the cable through passeage that the old cable was ran without cutting the wire tie's the new cable was a larger diamieter if i'm not mistaken it does ; and if there isn't anything wrong with the cylinder's this should take care of your problem ! Here's the way i bleed the wheel cylinder's : i use a small clear plastic or glass container and a small clear hose that will fit snugly onto the bleeder valve nipple ( plastic fuel or vacuum line will do fine ) ! And then pour clean DOT4 brake fluid just enough to cover the bottom of the clear container so you can submerge the clear hose in the contaihner , so while you're bleeding the cylinder's you won't get air back in the cylinder ; first make sure the mastercylinder is full of fluid then start with the right front cylinder bleeder valve: open the bleed valve , plug the hose to the valve bleeder nipple and the other end of the hose submerged in the clear container with the clean DOT4 brake fliuld and slowly pump the hand brake lever 3 or 4 pump's ; then remove the hose and close the bleeder valve ! Recheck the master cylinder fliud level and refill as needed ! And repeat the above instruction's untill there are no air bubble's in the clear hose , then refill master cylinder and go to the left wheel cylinder and repeat the same proccess on the left wheel cylinder ; then you're through with the brake cylinder bleeding since there's no wheel cylinder on the rear brakkes just be sure keep the mastercylinder full every step of the way ! And this should get the hand brakes working right , in most cases just as doing the brakes on a car or truck you have to drive the quad a little to get the brakes to build up all the way because the brake's have an automatic adjuster on them you will need to go forward pumping the brake lever as you are moving and do the same in reverve pumpting the hand brake lever as well for the auto adjusting system to adjust the brake's while doing these proceadjures; but after driving it after a mile or so it still hasn't build up of the hand brake to the way it was when new you'll need to check the front and rear wheel brake shoe's for cleaning and adjustment ! if this happen's check the brake shoe's for thickness of the brake linging's to see if they need replacement !....................... And some time you may have to bleed the brakes more than one time to get all the air from the system , i had the same thing with my first ATV whitch just happened to be a Honda ; in fact it was the first year Honda made their first 350 foreman 4x4 ATV ! It was a 1986 Honda TRX 350 Foreman Full Time 4x4 it was built in april or may 1985 and released as the 1986 model year , there was a 1985 first year model ; but according my local dealer who was the first Honda Dealer in North Ga. , and he was the only Dealer here untill about the year 2000 when he finally sold out to some younger group of guy's who are better to deal with than the old man was ; he wouldn't come down a penny under MRSP even if he had to keep a quad 5 years in his ware house before someone came in and wanted an older model and were willing to pay the MRSP on the quad the first year it was available ! Buy the way the cheapest Honda Dealer in the US is Southern Honda Of Chattanooga TN On all Honda Product's from land vehicles to Marine ! hope this does it with your Rancher and it would be a good thing to remove your hub's and do an inspection and a good cleaning of your brake's with a good brake cleaning product before you start bleeding the brake's on your quad , the brake componate's build up alot of brake dust and can and do get dirty water inside the drum even though the drum's are sealed it still get's dirty water inside the drum's anyway and can cause rust to form inside the drum on all the brake compontents ; i've seen this first hand with my old Honda and a 1993 Suzuki LTF4WD 300 King Quad and it cost me big money to replace the rusty part's that still had good brake linning on the shoe's but i had to replace the work's on the Honda and Suzuki for not inspecting the brake's untill they went bad instead of cleaning and inspecting the brake's as per the Owners Manual Servicing Guide Lines Stated as part of servicing the quad ! This was a costly mistake for me to learn ! But garymaberry i hope you don't have to find this out the way i did , and your Rancher hasn't gone to far before this servicing to cause you to have any of the problem's i had ; because i know how costly these things can be even when they are serviced regular and the parts replaced were not from neglect the part;s are more expensive than a sports car ! Goog luck and have a good weekend ! .....................................

 

ummm...his rear brakes are manual not hydraulic...

 

quicksilver i didn't know for sure because garymaberry didn't tell the year of his quad , and my Borther Dan has a 2004 and it has drum brakes on all three wheels on his as well and the rear drum brake has no wheel cylinder on it either just the 2 front brake's use the Hydraulic system ; the rear brake has a machanical type brake lever that's mounted to a rod like shaft like the type that the foot gear shifter goes on and clamp's the lever using a bolt that tighten's and clamp's the lever to the rod and keep's the shifter from slipping when you change the gear's! The stud that the brake lever goes on come's out the backside of the rear of the brake backing plate , and is clamped with a bolt that when it's tightened it clamp's the brake lever to the shaft the same way the gear shifter does ; to keep it from slipping ! This shaft need's to be lubrecated to keep it woking smoothly ; and also the brake foot lever can sheeze up if you don't keep it lubed also and if it's not maintained ! The hand brake cable is connected to the same lever that the foot brake lever is connected to , whitch if the foot lever isn't lubed and maintained ; this will cause the hand brake lever harder to squeeze ; making it harder to apply enough pressure to stop the quad with the rear brake's ! Maybe this will help garymaberry get his Rancher's brake's fixed , this is the only thing i can think of at this time so i hope this does the trick ! ..............................