Aftermarket handbrake way too long

 Well, I guess it makes sense that the handbrake cable I ordered was way too long. Of course these handbrake cables are made for LHD trucks and they don't actually make a RHD one. I have been told that even for left hook trucks they are too long, but in my case, we're talking about ten inches too long. And what a pain, because I was pretty keen to hook the thing up and go for a burn down the street (even though it was all of about five degrees outside or less - we're in Goulburn, that is. Goulburn NSW in mid winter).

For a fleeting moment I thought about making up a pulley system to take up the slack until common sense just told me it was best to take it to a cable shop and get them to resize it to the correct size.

Retro Spares got back to me and said they would be able to knock something up to suit, which means I have to bundle it down and post to Victoria etc.  I don't really see that I have too many options up my sleeve, so that will be the next project. 

Of course there are a million other little projects I could be doing, and another one is getting the brake lights to work. After blushing with success over the blinkers, I forgot all about the brake lights. And, naturally, they don't work. I have done a quick test of the brake switch by checking that a live wire is present, though no response with lights once brake pushed, so, probably one faulty switch, but could be a broken wire, bad earth, blown fuse (although this truck has a circuit breaker type system) or bad relay, and so it goes... At least it is not a modern vehicle. So, a new switch on order.

I lashed out and bought a 12 circuit wiring kit and plan on rewiring the entire truck at some stage.

Speaking of lashing out. I bought a set of lap sash seatbelts and a couple of floor anchors. Once again, I will be chasing up a fabrication shop to make me up a couple of heavy duty steel plates just like I did with my last failed project only a year ago. Pretty frustrating having to follow up all this stuff again in such a short time, but I need seatbelts if nothing else. They're arriving today. I am hoping they are gonna fit as I didn't measure them at all. The plan is to raise the bench seat about ten inches anyway and put some sort of a frame around the base and mount the seat higher, so I could be miles out. I took a punt and chose a set of XY Falcon seatbelts from a sedan rather than a ute, as the sedan ones are a bit longer. 

There's a steel shop in Goulburn that looks like it has just about everything I could need, so will be paying more than one visit there in the weeks ahead.

Just have to soldier through this miserable weather...

Sunvisor fitup with minor adjustments

 The old tart came without sunvisors when I bought it, excepting for a broken stalk on the drivers' side. So, I forked out quite a bit to buy new sunvisors and a pair of chrome rods to suit. I think they came from Dennis Carpenter. The chrome rods are very nice quality, but the sunvisors themselves are relatively cheap vinyl coated cardboard, probably just how the factory made them back in the day. 

I had some issues with inserting the rod into the hole and had to resort to filing some of the metal away to allow it to work into the slot for both visors.

The other thing was knocking out the passenger side section to fit. I just used a drill to drill out the four spotwelds holding the blocking plate and gently tapped it in with a hammer and chisel just enough to be able to reach in and pull it out before it fell all the way through. I used a pair of long nosed pliers. 

Check out the nice little action shot right here! It was a bit touch and go for a while as I seriously thought I was gonna lose that piece of metal, imagining that it would forever be lodged down the inside pillar of the window, but I was victorious in the end. 

And here is the finished result! Looks great and the colour compliments the interior very well. Pleased I didn't buy the black set. 

1952 F1 Handbrake woes part 3

 

This picture shows the damaged worn out area where the tong thing (I am too lazy to Google what you call it, but it's that part that joins with the upper cable) connects to via a pin. Over the years the steel has broken away and I think this could also be contributing to the handbrake not wanting to engage with the teeth, as there was a lot of movement in that handbrake lever. The other side was just as bad. I hit it with the welder and then ran a drill through it before filing it down. It came up quite well. I am just waiting on a new front cable to put it all together. Should arrive any day now. If it doesn't work, I am suspecting that I will need to take that pawl out and give it a bit more of a file down, but so far it feels tight.