I have posted this in the Tires,Wheels and Brakes forum but it seems to be mostly concerning Tires and Wheels so:
I have a 2005 Cooper with 43000 miles on it. I have had no braking from the emergency brakes for several years. I have jacked up the back end and bottomed out the adjustment and can turn the rear wheels by hand. The only explanations I got were 'the cables are rusted in place, broken or stretched'. I was skeptical since I rarely use the hand brake but I purchased the cables and installed them. Same results. The cables I took off were not bound up or broken.
($10 for the pair + shipping) The only suspect left is the caliper but I have not found any exploded view of them to see what I would be getting into.
Anybody have any suggestions as to what the cause of the problem might be?

Ben

 

Get under the car and have someone pull up and down on the brake lever. Check that the bell crank on the calipers are moving. If they are you need to adjust the cables more. If they aren't moving it may be time for new calipers

 

Thanks for the suggestion r34king. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. There is no more adjustment available. It is bottomed out. I don't understand why the caliper would go bad it is only 9 years old and the ebrake has only been used a couple of dozen times.

Ben

 

The ebrake lever on the caliper moves freely. It just does not move the brake pads far enough. Barely makes contact with 7 clicks of the ebrake handle. Since I rarely use it anyway, I put a little over 3/8 of an inch of washers under the adjusting nut. Get a little more contact. Will hold the car if the hill isn't too steep. Can't see spending $330+ for new calipers. Thanks again for your suggestions.

Ben