Emergency Brake

When I first got my car, the emergency brake cable was broken.  If the rubber coating on the flexible housing that the cable runs through gets cut or worn through, water can seep in.  Then the cable starts rusting at that point and eventually breaks or rusts to the spring core of the housing.  Sometimes, the cable breaks or rusts in position with the emergency brakes on and you have to take them apart at the rear wheels in order to drive the car.  So if you've never had to replace the cable, a good inspection of the rubber with some grease added will prevent future problems.

I got some new cable and proceeded to remove the old one.  That was easy since it was broken.  Normally, each end has a brazed on fitting that must be removed to take the cable out of the housings.  When I looked at the ends, the fittings were simply squished nuts that were soldered (not brazed) onto the cable ends.  As the cable was broken, determining the proper length was difficult.  I erred on the long side and in trying to it tighten up so the emergency brake would hold, I got the pads too tight on the rotor.  When the rotor was cold, there was enough play, but after driving a while with a couple of stops, the rotor warmed up enough to rub on the emergency brake pads.  At that point, everything just got hotter and hotter.  After feeling something funny on the freeway, I stopped, and looking through the holes in the alloy wheels, could see that the rotor was red hot and there was a small fire burning the excess grease at a nearby fitting.  I managed to blow out the fire and kept blowing it out for the next 10 minutes or so while the rotor cooled down.  I now know that the clearance specification is .020" and that's for a good reason.

Anyway, that's all ancient history.  Onto more modern times, when Lowell Brown got his car, I pointed out that the red plunger on the handbrake was supposed to flash when the emergency brake was applied.  Of course, I got to help Lowell take it apart and fix the wiring (that always gets cut) to get it working again.

So when Lowell couldn't get the handbrake adjusted, I got a call.  After looking at the action, it was clear that the cable was rusted to the housing on the left side and the handbrake was being actuated because the whole housing was moving in the clips on that one side.  We removed both housings with the cable and proceeded to inspect them.  There was a place on the left side where the rubber was cut (from a mounting clip).  I was able to bend the housing enough so that we could put WD-40 in between the spring wires and saturate the cable at that point.  Then with some force, we were able to get the cable moving inside the housing again.  We also made a funnel from duct tape to try and pour WD-40 inside the housing from each end.  Because the end fittings are brazed on, you can't remove the cable and grease the whole thing which is really the right solution. Later,  Lowell re-installed everything and pulled on the emergency brake.  The cable broke at fitting on the left side.

Lowell took everything apart again and brought the cable and housings out to my house.  Since one fitting was already off, we took both housings off the cable.  Then we cleaned the cable with a wire brush and re-installed it, liberally applying grease as we fed it into the housings.  Then I sweat soldered the fitting back onto the end of the cable.  This ended up only shortening it by 1/4" or so.  One good thing is that we measured the cable.  It's 139.5" including the brazed on fittings and 4.1mm in diameter.  So now I know the right length if mine ever breaks again.

Lowell re-installed everything back on the car and spent quite a while adjusting the emergency brake.  Everything seemed to work fine until the car sat for a couple of weeks with the emergency brake set.  Lowell went to drive the car and found the brake loose.  After inspection of each side, the problem turned out that the cable had pulled out of the soldered fitting.  I guess that's why Ferrari brazed them on.

Of course, we had to remove the belly pan to remove the pulley to get enough slack at the end of the housing for the brazing.  While the pan was off, I stuck a mirror way up by the gearshift housing and was able to read the transmission serial number.  Then we had to re-assemble the pulley and re-adjust the mechanism.  Previously, the adjustments were taking up about as much slack as possible (probably because the cable had stretched over time).  With the shorter cable, they now have a lot of adjustment left.  So that cable should last for another 34 years or so.

Now, if I ever take mine apart again, I will need to make the right fittings to replace the squished nuts and then braze them on.  Just another low priority project to occupy a weekend sometime in the future.

Well, I did go ahead and make the ends using the tools in my neighbor's shop.  Click here to continue reading.