[Lord of Hog]

Those of you with chronic insomnia, weak bladders, extremely high boredom threshold etc might have previously come across my musings on a niggle affecting my X-plate 2.5: the mystery knock from behind the driver's seat when negotiating certain short bumps in the road.

After taking advice from other members I concluded it was a loose seat back board and made a note to watch out for some when next at the scrappy. I'm glad I didn't as, the other day when negotiating the picturesque but winding road from Ticehurst to Crowborough, I happened to lay my hand on the tunnel just to the rear of the centre console and felt a definite knock coming through it.

Convinced I'd finally tracked the culprit down I got underneath the old girl as soon as I got home in search of some excess movement in the exhaust or some other similar explanation. With the exception of a distorted heat shield, which I pulled back into shape, there was nothing that could be persuaded to make contact with the underside of the car even when wriggled, shaken and generally bounced up and down with some degree of ferocity.

Conclusion: whatever is doing the knocking has to be actually within the tunnel at about the same location as, or just to the rear of, the handbrake assembly and compensator. The handbrake works fine and has only just passed an MOT. Is it possible, in the opinion of the learned members of this august organ, for something to either have come adrift yet not affected the working of the brake? Or would a properly functioning mechanism with a little more slack in the cables than is strictly necessary cause this sort of sound?

I suppose if there were a handbrake compensator expert reasonably local to me I could have the compensator done just in case and track down the mystery knock at the same time.

Any offers? RH19