1.8 T Rear Brakes

[Ant1981]

I'm going to renew my rear pads and discs.

As the Haynes manual suggests, I need to remove the handbrake cable from the lever up front under the centre consol. Is this really necessary, or does someone else know of a neat trick?

Cheers.

[golfgtidan]

i wouldnt bother doing that, it aint necessary. done mine recently. all you need is a tool to wind the piston back. other than that is pretty straight forward

[snap-on]

dont need to remove cables anywhere , just undo caliper bolts and wind pistons back using the correct tool as said above

[Ant1981]

Cool, thanks guys.

[jamie16v]

as said already twice, just rewind the piston back with the rewind tool.
one question i do have though and sorry to hi-jack the thread.
i recently did my rear pads and tightened the handbrake cable as my handbrake was quite poor. do the cables stretch quite easily on these cars as i found as soon as the handbrake was working corrrectly i got quite enthusiastic with it   
and now it works like it did before i adjusted the cables...

[Ant1981]

Well, did the rear brakes today. Straight forward as you say.

I went to do the front brakes, but the guide pin bolts need a 7mm allen socket drive, which for some reason my kit goes 6mm then 8mm.