Chronicles of Barron

Joking aside when I pulled my seat out there was a couple of roaches in the seat track and I am not talking about insects.

 

Steer text beer shift, hell of a skill! LOL!

 

I have a phone mic for my Bluetooth enabled head unit. It is located most of the way up the driver-side A-pillar yet I still get too much car noise to really use hands-free telephone. It will be interesting to learn if you get better results with the mic located behind the steering wheel.

It is truly amazing how much audio crap can accumulate from prior audio installations. I pulled at least three installations worth of cables out of my car. There were wires in the console tunnel, under the carpets, in the engine bay, under the trunk carpet, in the wheel wells, everywhere!

I've simplified it down to a modern head unit, a power amp in the driver's (!) foot-well, and component speakers with tweeters in the window crank holes. The Bluetooth dongle is zip-tied to the A/C duct. It sounds good. It is nice to have voice navigation (via Google maps) from the phone going through the speaker system.

 

Whelp, it's been awhile since I've done anything to this here car, don't want to do anything overly extreme like shift shaft seal seeing as how I'd like to drive it this weekend. I took the cowards way out and decided to have a look at the non working parking brake. After getting it up in the air it's easy to see the cables were no longer on track, no longer adjustable and just no longer. I started the tear down knowing I had the desire to drive critical deadline looming with 3 days away. All proper car builds have a deadline. Was able to get the cables out pretty fast since they had plenty of slack. Little plastic cable runner do dads had failed decades ago so I had to think up a better mouse trap, plus I don't have new plastic doodads. I went with what's in my tool box option A, brake lines. I whacked one in half and used the nut and short piece of tubing with "bell end" I didn't need to say "bell end" but you UK guys love the word "bell end" so "bell end" it is. The threaded nut just bolted right in the mount tab like it was made for it, slide the tube thru and bobs your uncle. Don't bend the tube yet, you need to slide cable thru first, then bend down appropriate angle, on the passenger side I used a spring instead (cable wouldn't slide thru tube, crimp was to large) the cables themselves were trouble to get adjustable again, I used a torch and proper amount of hate. Was able to get it apart and properly greased. Works as it should now. Reassembled and adjusted as it should. Need to get it dialed in now but I was able to crack the deadline by 3 days, ok so the job took an hour or so... Anyway here's pictures, try not to forget fellas, no matter what you post there must be a picture of something, otherwise someone should turn the hose on you
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That's preservation oil on everything by the way
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Here's the tools you need to almost destroy the cables to get them to work again
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Here's the magic, now remember this is race car fixes, I'm no restorer. You need a good working parking brake on your race car in the pits
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One more
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Well one more, this is how I adjusted it with one hand
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Finally, that's the spring I mentioned
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I looked up and noticed it's time to do the cv boots, the car was helping with disassembly whilst driving
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Okay, Vonbarron, given the extensive expenditure in time and materials, does your parking brake actually now work????

 

Pretty sure? I've rented the track tonight to make sure

 

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Standing by to lend a hand when it's time to remove those half shafts and put new boots on. It looks like during a prior adventure someone chose to go with different fasteners. Those CV bolts usually have locking castle nuts on them which rarely back off (101633 NUT - Ricambi America, Inc.). By the way, the bolts are 12.9 PN strength M10 x 1.25 65mm (length under the head). You can get those from the usual online metric fastener suppliers, however, it's next to impossible to find the correct length. When I did this job I ended up purchasing 70mm long bolts for around $1/each and then had them cut to 65mm. No such luck finding the specialized lock nuts with that thread pitch, ended up paying up for the horsey version.

 

I just replaced these nuts and bolts. The correct bolts are available here (check the price, a fraction of what the usual suspects charge):
M10, 1.25mm FINE PITCH BLACK SOCKET CAP SCREWS HIGH TENSILE 12.9 ALLEN KEY BOLT | eBay

I hunted all over the place for the nuts but ended up getting them from the specialists. However, the nuts are priced at £1.59 each at Eurospares (versus £4.70 at Superformance and US$ 9.55 at Ricambi's)

Good Luck

 

So what I've learned after lubing and pathway management of the parking system.... The 1983 euro did not come with a parking brake

 

Correct. That silver and black thing to the right of the driver is actually a poorly designed arm rest.

 

You guys are too funny...

 

...and here was me thinking that it was a funky adjustable holder for the interior indirect "ambience" light that Martin made those LEDs for...

 

Come everyone, sit by the fire while I tell you what happened to the Ferrari last night.....
I went to dinner last night at the Bravern, it's a mediocre steak house that thinks it's not, anyhow I take the 308 cause it's sunny with a slight chance of rain later, no biggie. I pull up to the valet and tell the kid with the Mohawk "there's no parking brake, leave it in gear".......

 

3 hours later I'm coming down the escalator and notice the driving lights are on and there's two security guys standing politely next to it, limousine directly behind it. I think when I see lights on, these guys left key on and don't understand that it'll burn out the coils, probably not but I've killed race cars in the past. So I get to the valet and it's a manager who's first words are "I'm sorry but...."

 

He explains the Mohawk used ignition key in the door and twisted it, got it out and tried to bend it back and it snapped, yes it's the original, no I don't have a spare. Now this is where it's still not a big deal, I'm patient and no longer kill people in foreign countries. But, they called in a locksmith while I'm upstairs having food I don't like, they know I'm up here, the waiter lets me know I have a neat car, I ask him how he knows I didn't take a bus. "Your the only guy in the restaurant with a tattoo on his neck" so they know. The locksmith tries to make a key I guess, I'm sure he doesn't have a Ferrari/fiat blank but I'm wrong all the time, anyway, he snaps the home built key off in the ignition in the on position. Thus my car is on for who knows how long, all the while a guy is chattering in my ear about how they'll pay for everything and it'll be towed wherever I need it last night. Limo is there to take me where I want. This is professional. Nobody gets yelled at, I never reveal my hand in public. So now I have the car sitting here in my barn, immobile and no way to check ignition. Holiday weekend so no action. Now I'll have to spend my time and money dealing with this before being reimbursed. Oh and no original key now, diminished value to my ultra rare race car, with btw more horsepower than all of you. So what to do, scrap it? Trade it for several 360's? Full race? Lift it with 4 wheel drive? As an interesting side note, tow truck guy said he towed a 308 last week that dropped its valves, he offered a low price and fella thought about it

 

You should have come to my house for dinner last night, . . . we ordered pizza. No limo ride after your meal but at least we could have been working on the CV boots this weekend instead of trying to figure out how to extract that busted off key from the ignition.

I'm so sorry this happened to you!

 

I like pizza