A12 - time to get busy

The axles and backing plates are back on the car, still have to install the shoes and etc.

My stupid emergency brake cable is about an inch or two too short on the driver's side. I guess the cable stop on the frame rail got relocated when they moved the spring into the frame rail.. It's the bottom cable in the photo below. That's as far as it goes. Not sure what to do about that.

20260328_175534.jpg

I've got to screw up my confidence and go ahead and glue the shoddy pad to the underside of the cowl. I've glued insulation to the kick panels and to the trunk divider and it seems like you get one try to get it right. Everything I've done so far has been less than perfect. Also wondering how big of a mess it's going to make spraying glue inside the car since you need to have glue on both parts you're assembling.
 
Was putting the rear shoes on and can't get them in place with the e-brake spreader bar in there for some reason. I bought the emergency brake parts from Brewer's. It's close enough to the same compared to what came with the backing plates.

The spreader bar doesn't seem to want to slide all the way on the primary side.

20260330_191604.jpg

I was having a helluva time with the pins and springs - I kept dropping the spring. I couldn't get my hand in there because of the axle flange. I ended up gluing the round metal piece to the spring to keep it from falling off the tool. It's not dumb if it works.
 
Creative work arounds are part of this hobby, did you finally figure out the spreader bar?

I can't think of any for the E-brake cable, maybe weld another hunk of metal in the right place, looks like room to clear the spring bolt?
 
RUSTY Cuda said:
I can't think of any for the E-brake cable, maybe weld another hunk of metal in the right place, looks like room to clear the spring bolt?
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The cable ends have to stick out equally. So I have to move the whole bracket back toward the rear end or find another piece of cable. Extra housing isn't a problem unless it gets to where I don't have room for it. I wonder how long a C-body cable is? (I found the housing length is 22.36 on a Dorman part for a Fury, 22.16 for a Road Runner - not enough)

I might make it to the garage tonight, next time out I'm going to pull that anti-rattle spring off the spreader and see if it will fit that way.

shoe install.jpg
 
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A little more searching found a part for a Ford LTD that is 4" longer and the ends look the same but there is 9.5" difference between the housing and cable on the Ford but 11" difference on the b-body.

It has to be the same *difference* between cable and housing as the b-body part or the cables won't pull correctly.
 
b-body-bob said:
I might make it to the garage tonight, next time out I'm going to pull that anti-rattle spring off the spreader and see if it will fit that way.
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I did that, still didn't fit, then I took a big screwdriver and opened up the slot a little bit and I'm your uncle. I have a bad habit of expecting new reproduction parts to fit right out of the box, but I know better.

Now I need to find a solution to my e-brake cable problem. I'm going to contact finelines or whoever made the parts I've got to see if they can make a custom one for me.
 
This shows how far off it is

Note where the front spring eye bolt is in relation to the bracket
1775137796541.png

Now look at it on my car
1775137849569.png

I probably need an even longer cable than I was thinking.

FWIW I found places that will build brake custom brake cables.
 
The stop was moved 3" toward the front of the car and 1/2" or so toward the center of the car. I found a piece of fuel hose that just happened to be about 3-3/4" longer than the housing of the cable I have (26"). That fit fine between the stop and the backing plate and left some slack in it for the suspension to move.

Now the company I'm trying to work with wants me to send the cable I've got that doesn't fit to them so they can base it off that. It's just a standard off the shelf Mopar B-body cable set. The company makes those but mine is from a different company. I kind of understand but don't see why when I just need a standard B-body cable with the housing and the cable 3-3/4" longer. There's no refund on it anyway, they can't really go wrong.

So I'm between sending the cable to them or just saying fkit I accept the responsibility for the measurement so please make me what I asked for.
 
Gotta ask a dumb question, doesn't moving this half of the cable system screw up the parts that hook up on the other end?
 
RUSTY Cuda said:
Gotta ask a dumb question, doesn't moving this half of the cable system screw up the parts that hook up on the other end?
Click to expand...
I thought about that, but as long as the cable housing and cable get longer by the same amount, the connection ends up in the same place. Since I want to add the same length to both the housing and cable, the cable outside the housing remain the same length. As long as the spring that covers the cable inside the drum is the right length it will all work out.

Also the adjuster pulls the cable toward the front of the car so there's no worry about running out of adjustment because the stop moved.

The important part is that the spring covered part that goes inside the brake drum and the bare cable out the front of the housing stay the same length so the left and right cables end up connecting to the front cable at the same distance from the stop. Cable inside the housing doesn't make a bit of difference. The right side works fine because it's way longer than it needs to be to begin with, so it reaches the stop with no problem.

There's another situation I have to deal with - either the stop itself is too thick, or the undercoat and paint on it is. The thickness keeps me from putting the cable through and clipping the retainer in the slot at the end of the housing. I've got faith that once I strip it to bare metal I'll be able to clip it in. It doesn't seem like those clips really hold anything because the housing doesn't move so I think they'e there to just keep a slack cable from letting the housing slip out of the stop.
 
Now you've got me thinking about it ... the rear cable ends will be 3" forward of where the factory cables would meet the adjuster, so I have 3" less adjustability. The threaded end on the front cable is only 5" long. So the most adjustment I can take up, in a perfect world, is 2". That seems like it could be a problem.
 
I'm still undecided on what I'm going to do - I don't want to weld on it - not yet anyway, and sure don't want to drill holes in what's supporting the spring eye. Also, the steel isn't flat 3" back so welding or bolting will be no fun.

I could go ahead with the one longer cable idea - it might work all the same - but it might also be that buying one longer cable turns into needing a shorter front cable.

Universal cable kits all look like cobbled together junk to me, even the expensive ones. There's the weird connector at the pedal end to deal with too. On the universal kits those are all look too wide to even fit, no less connect.

I'm thinking about bending an extension to bolt to the stop that's there, that moves it 3" to the rear. But I'm moving on for now.
 
I glued the shoddy pad in place then made a Z shaped extension for the e-brake and now the cables are where they should be. It bolts to the existing cable stop, extends back 3", then offsets for the cables to mount.

Drawback is it's just 16 gauge because that's the thickest you can get at a hardware store, but my benchtop break isn't going to bend much more than that anyway so it is what it is.

I need to add a gusset to keep it from bending but it might work. There doesn't seem there would be a lot of bending force at the mount, because the pedal pulls the cable not the housing. But we will see.

If this doesn't work, I've got an idea to bolt 3" tubes to the existing mount with a plate on the other end for the cable. That shouldn't bend at all, at least not at the tubes/bolts.
 
stupid welding mask doesn't work so I didn't get the part gusseted, but this is what it looks like:
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It needs some trimming yet. It has to be bolted in so it can be removed if I need to unbolt the front spring eye.

I got that stupid shoddy pad glued in too

20260404_181816.jpg
 
Well that didn't work, don't know why, and it doesn't matter.

When I run the front cable, it's about an inch from reaching. If I move the cables forward an inch, the housing is too short.

I also ran into this at the other end

20260412_121434.jpg
That hole in the frame is supposed to be small enough that the black clip on the cable clips into it.

I noticed it looked weird but put it out of mind until I had to deal with it.

Hooray. I'm too old for this.
 
This weekend, I installed the brake pedal box and bracing, bench-bled and installed the M/C, finished routing the brake lines, adjusted the brakes, and started bleeding. I've got fluid to the end of the system but am still pushing air out. I used a tall bottle of brake fluid so far. Everything was dry when I started so it's used a lot.

I also installed the fuel line. There are some parts in the way that tie the frame connector to the rocker so I had to run the line down the inside. I might end up having to add a heat shield if this car ever gets an exhaust.
 
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