hand brake cable question

[mbouse]

sometimes i think we should have a discussion page just for brakes. here goes a question from me on this subject...kinda hard to believe, i know...

hand brake cable on the passenger side is poorly engineered to be routed right underneath the exhaust pipe, and eventually sits tightly ON the exhaust long enough to melt all of the rubber sheathing.

anyone ever come up with a good working solution to this problem? i am doing brakes this weekend, including a brand new hand brake cable. sure would be nice to insure that this is the last cable i buy for this car.

[So Cal Mark]

I've seen them wrapped with heater hose, rubber sheath and asbestos sleeves. Then again, if you invest in one of my nifty, performance-improving exhaust systems there is plenty of clearance

[kristoj]

A short piece of silicone hose works well too.

[manoa matt]

I wrapped mine with a length of header wrap. I don't want to hijack the thread but does the cable go over or under the long trailing arms? The drawings in the manuals are pretty small.

[Curly]

There should be a little right-angled tab on the underside of the trailing arm that the cable sits in. That being said - both my Fiats are lowered substantially and I find the cable runs straighter when positioned above the trailing arms.

[mbouse]

i bought some asbestoes type sleeves that were intended for spark plug wire heat protection. I was just curious as to what everyone else tried.

and, to answer the question about over/under the trailing arms..... my '78 does over for the passenger side and under for the driver's side. brackets to hold the cable in place determine that. Is that because i have the wrong arm on one side or the other?

[So Cal Mark]

no, you have one arm on upside down

[mbouse]

Oh.... which one? Now is the time to correct that situation.

[So Cal Mark]

bracket should be on the bottom

[mbouse]

thanks...

and matt, thanks for the hijack. i would never have thought that i needed to turn a trailing arm 180°

[manoa matt]

Well funny you should say that. On my 78 I have the original long arms. The tabs that are welded to the arms are not universally symmetrical if the arms are laying side by side. Its like they came up with one design and then instead of reversing it to the other arm they just said, reverse the arm itself.

For the owners of 78 and earlier cars I'm sure this is not the first time this confusion was noticed. From 79 and on, the arms are stronger and the clip design is universally symmetrical.