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[BDA]

Thanks for the instructions! Fortunately, I've completed my car, my hands have healed and my e-brake doesn't work with the discs I have anyway. 

[rascott]

it's been a bit showery this weekend, so i amused myself by clearing the "shop" enough to do some "fabricating".
cut up some scrap that might simulate pedal assembly pieces, and glued it together with hot metal.
it should give me a way to mabe operate the clutch and see what the brakes may do.............
it also showed me how to make a real one.

[EuropaTC]

Now that's very neat work, are those pedal arms laser cut or old fashioned sweat & hacksaw ?  Neat work whatever the method and good progress for only a weekend's work.

Brian

[BDA]

Very nicely done! The curves give it an artistic flair!  Too bad, you'll hardly be able to see them when everything's done.

[rascott]

Now that's very neat work, are those pedal arms laser cut or old fashioned sweat & hacksaw ?  Neat work whatever the method and good progress for only a weekend's work.

Brian

my "shop" equipment is pretty crude. i would like to try a laser cutting thing. i spend a lot of time grinding and filing, and my gluing gets better about 1/2 way thru the projest(project). i try to measure things, but do a lot by eye, sorta.
this thing will work for a first attempt, and for what i need now,but it's not the right materials(mixed metals, too thin, poor looking glue).
thought i'd try a version of the original rustlump. the next one will be better, probably.
also- i found some tube that should work for the cooling system and am trying to make some bends in it.
crimped it nicely on my first attempt.

[rascott]

Very nicely done! The curves give it an artistic flair!  Too bad, you'll hardly be able to see them when everything's done.

i liked the way they cut those pedals, and mine came out very much like 'em.
i still need to figure and add some pedal stops, and have a better thing to copy/modify in the next version.
artistic license required.
and usually a thick coat of paint.
i think i have the accelerator pedal fixed. had to drill that cotter pin out. cost a lot of drill bits and bad thoughts.
should have just drifted out, but no.......

[jbcollier]

It may just be a trick of the light but the new pedal arms look to be quite a bit thinner.

[rascott]

It may just be a trick of the light but the new pedal arms look to be quite a bit thinner.

yes- everything but the base is lighter material, and i'm just guessing about the base(not much was left).
i thought i'd see if i could get the mechanics and fitment down, and get some makin' experience, so, when i find the right material, i can do it again.
thin as those arms are, they didn't bend trying to break the clutch cable loose........... i have removed the clutch cable.
i have also tried 2 more bends in wannabe coolant tube. not satisfactory. need better tooling.
i have a brake pedal now, so i can play with the brakes while i think about it. see how many bleeders i can snap off first.

cntnu030315
i replaced the clutch cable. i could feel the release bearing contact the pressure plate, but had to jam the pedal a bunch before any further movement was felt. i will ignore this until i can get the motor running again, but it doesn't feel very good.

blabla030715
starting to work on brakes. i find that there is only a slot in the chassis for the handbrake cable- unlike the picture i saw by 4129r. it seems i can't put the horseshoe(compensator, swing-tree) on prior to installing the rear cable.

smor030815
since the swing-tree(compensator, horseshoe) won't fit thru the cable slot in the tunnel, i am taking a tip from bda and have modified the horseshoe to accept a couple of tie wraps to keep the cable in the shoe. i do not intend to crimp it.
i have also resized the holes in the front boot that fasteners for the throttle pedal and handbrake mountings fit thru.
don't mind using fender washers to spread a load, not to try and center a fastener...........

stil030815
i have assembled the handbrake. not bad- only minor blood loss, but it smeared all over the place and spooked my wife. more of the bruised forearms again- that lasts longer.

[BDA]

since the swing-tree(compensator, horseshoe) won't fit thru the cable slot in the tunnel, i am taking a tip from bda and have modified the horseshoe to accept a couple of tie wraps to keep the cable in the shoe. i do not intend to crimp it.

I think that's the only thing you can do. That horseshoe is pretty stout. I don't know how you could crimp it with common hand tools.

Thanks for that update, by the way. I was starting to think I must be some sort of idiot to have overlooked the blindingly obvious way to put it back together when I did mine! I might still be an idiot but I remember looking at it several times trying to figure how it was supposed to go together!

[EuropaTC]

Yep, you've picked the best path for the h/brake horseshoe. That's a strange arrangement in the central tunnel, I wonder how they did it originally ?

It is possible on mine to feed the cables through from inside the car via the top of the central tunnel but I think my cable is just resting in the horseshoe (no crimps) because the last time I removed it I just slid the cable out and left the horseshoe in place.  With the adjuster bolt from the front cable preventing the rear wire from coming out completely then once it's adjusted properly there's enough tension to prevent the wire from coming out of the horseshoe. The cable is pretty tight in there to get a decent handbrake.

Clutch - quite common for the driven plate to stick to the flywheel. You can normally break it free with a few heat cycles through the engine but as you say, a job for another time.....

Brian

[BDA]

That's a strange arrangement in the central tunnel, I wonder how they did it originally ?

My guess is either they built the frame around it,  they had some bizarre crimping tool that fit in the tunnel and they wanted to get some use out of it, or it was a cruel joke on us!

[EuropaTC]

It is puzzling, although I'm saying that and assuming the cable is the same as the one I had.  I did a double-take on the photo and went searching back for one of mine, taken years ago when I sorted out some rust in that area. Mine (and no doubt all TCs) has a big hole in the slot so you could feed the cable through from inside the car. The only way I can see without the access hole is to feed the wire through from the engine bay and hook around the horseshoe inside the tunnel. Which is pretty much what I did anyway the last time I installed one.

Brian

[4129R]

I took the whole rear cable and U clamp out of the centre box, opened the jaws carefully with a hammer and metal chisel, took the old cable out, put the centre part of the new cable into the U in the vice, crimped the ends using the vice, and then fed the whole lot into the black hole, and fed the cables through the Y into the engine bay. I attached the spring to the U before feeding it into the black hole, and then used needle nose pliers to attach the spring to the little hole in the chassis Y.

In the factory this would have been done before the body was attached, and before the radiator pipes were put through the hole, before the gear change was put in, and before the engine was attached.

[rascott]

i was disappointed by the holeless slot. mabe the hole was added after enough mechanics had started badmouthing the factory design.
perhaps, when the engine is out, i can modify that area. i can see how much easier this could have been.
i have crimpers that would do the deed to the compensator(horseshoe, swing-tree), but i had a real hard time uncrimping it- don't want to do that again!
i have poked at the shift linkage a little bit. enough of it seems to have been worked on(as if things needed gusseting and straightening) that i may take it apart and reassemble it just to see how well it fits together.


shopfit031815
seems i need to rearrange my "shop" several times per "project-any size", rotating tools and equipment into position.
trying to fit a bender into the mix- something i've been interested in getting better at.

smwk032115
life gets in the way sometimes, but fiddled with the window motor operations. got full function in the left side, and confirmed the motor works in the right side, but that door has some problems that will require removal and disassembly.
perhaps the "shop" will be more productive soon.
oh, yeah- i also cut holes in my "fascia" for the speedometer and tachometer.

[rascott]

i have gained some tube bending capability. fitted the bender to mount in the same location as my tire "machine".
tried it out to copy the one piece of a piece of the original coolant tube(hot side).
i think i can weld some mounting tabs to it, and use it.
my plan is to bend up some squiggly thing to run the cold side in the engine compartment, and use connector hoses to the ones that run thru the chassis. mabe i can add some bends to the cold one in the chassis so it doesn't run at that odd angle?
i've also started some of the more permanent(mabe) rewire.