Handbrake - Not the Usual

[over_the_hill]

The fixing bolt has sheared off so the lever is floating.

The bolt is flush with the chassis so nothing to grip on.

I have stripped off most of the centre tunnel trim but access still isn't great.

Any tips on how to get this out.

[ukdj]

Access to this is pretty poor, I thought about this just the other day when replacing the handbrake switch.

I'd suggest that you may be able to get a right angled drill in, and either drill it out completely and re-tap the thread or drill a pilot hole for an easy out and wind out what is left of the bolt, although if it has sheared chances are it's in there pretty solid so probably will need drilling out and re-tapping.

Regards

UKDJ

Edited by ukdj on Saturday 15th March 21:30

[jojackson4]

Ask alun 450 about easy outs

[spend]

IIRC all you can do is hold the nut & saw through bolt shank (on the nut side).. All a bit tight but at least you can do it in comfort (sat down).

[over_the_hill]

Well I managed to get the bolt out this weekend - mainly by drilling. The problem was that the drill went in at an angle due to the location of the bolt which meant and easy-out extractor couldn't get enough grip. I ended up drilling a few small holes then gradually widening them with successively larger bits 1, 2, 2.5 3mm and eventually the bolt started to break up into bits.

Sorry about the quality but I was knelt on the drivers seat leaning over to take these.

Here you can se the hand brake and chassis rail - looking down into the transmission tunnel.
The brass coloured bolt in the centre of the brake lever is the one that sheared.
The hole in the ratchet (silver bit top left) fits over the spigot to the left of the bolt hole.
Part of the brake switch (terminal) can be seen on the bottom right.



Here is a similar view. The screwdriver is pointing at the bolt hole.



The hand brake switch had virtually had it. I started a separate thread on this saying it had been intermittent. You can see the bolt and one of the terminals but the central switch bit that the bolt screws onto just fell out and fell apart. It should look like this



and the bottom of the lever pushes the switch in when it is down and the brake is off.

[over_the_hill]

Right chaps - might have a problem here.

I set out to reassemble everything this weekend.

I put a tap through the hole. For reference it's M8x1.25
The tap went in fairly easily so it looked like it was following the existing threads so assumed they were OK.
Got a new bolt and tightened it into the hole. The bolt is 40mm but doesn't have thread all the way down



The smooth bit is where it passes through the handbrake.

The bolt tightened up but as soon as I pulled on the brake lever it jumped loose so obviously wasn't gripping that much.

Any option to drill the hole bigger is probably a non-starter as access is tight between the chassis rails and it would be impossible to get a drill in square-on to the hole - even one of those right angled ones.
So a bigger hole re-tapped for a bigger bolt or a bigger hole plugged with a thread insert is probably not going to be possible.

What do people think about coming in from the back (ooh-er misses).

Would have to cut a hole in the glass transmission tunnel on the Px side
Then drill through the chassis rail behind the brake support bracket - so coming through and out of the screen in the second big picture above where the screwdriver is pointing at the hole.
Would need to be careful with the alignment but then a longer bolt could go all the way through and a nut could be used to tighten it up.

Is this a bad idea.

Edited by over_the_hill on Monday 31st March 09:26

[ukdj]

Could you grind back the existing mounting and weld on a nut of the correct thread etc ?

[spend]

Can't you just fit a nut round the back?...

It might be possible to grind back the face, use a stud with 2 nuts fixing it in the bracket and slot the handbrake on (if there is clearance).

Drilling & welding in a nut is easy enough, if you have mig and time to reseal against rust.....

[over_the_hill]

I will try and get a better picture but the gap you can see in the first big picture above between the square bracket ( with hole and spigot) and the round chassis rail is only wide enough to get a very thin screwdriver in at the hole end.

[EGB]

Good luck with this, wish I could help. Question why did this happen? I have heared this from others. The hand brake does need a good tug to be fully effective. Any ideas how we can prevent this happening. Thanks. Eddie.

[over_the_hill]

EGB said:

Good luck with this, wish I could help. Question why did this happen? I have heared this from others. The hand brake does need a good tug to be fully effective. Any ideas how we can prevent this happening. Thanks. Eddie.

Well it's just the one bolt holding it, so all of the up and down and any lateral force is going through that one bolt.
A design allowing more access would have helped but this is life with a TVR

[over_the_hill]

There is a quite good picture on this thread - scroll to bottom of page 1

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=103...

You can better see how tight access is between the tubes in the middle.
You can see the square bracket on the Px tube with the bolt hole top-right and spigot bottom-left.

This looks surprisingly like my car at the minute (a messy hole in the middle) except I cant get the gear knob off so some of the trim is just moved around sideways. How tight should they be ?

[Tyre Tread]

over_the_hill said:

I cant get the gear knob off so some of the trim is just moved around sideways. How tight should they be ?

You may find there is a lock nut/collar beneath the knob. There was on mine iirc.

[over_the_hill]

After some thought and consideration I decided that coming in from the rear was the best option.

So I peeled back the carpet and cut out a small slot in the fibre glass transmission tunnel.

From Above



From Px side (I took this after I had drilled through so ignore the hole for now)



To help with alignment I made myself a simple jig



Then fitted this into the hand brake bracket and around the chassis tube. I used the screw to mark the position on the back of the tube and used a spirit level on top to keep it in line vertically.



Then starting off with a 1mm drill bit I drilled through the tube and back of the bracket (from Px side). Then gradually increased the hole size with increasing size bits. The hole was still a little bit off centre but once I got to about 5mm the drill pulled itself back into the centre. Keep going to 8mm (it's an M8 bolt)

I then took a 100m M8 bolt but I couldn't quite get that to fit due to access between the tubes so had to cut about 10mm off.

Bolted this through the hand brake as before, through the bracket, out the other side of the tube and finished off with a washer and nyloc nut.



This seems to be holding firm now so just need to refit all of the trim.

[over_the_hill]

Tyre Tread said:

You may find there is a lock nut/collar beneath the knob. There was on mine iirc.

I still couldn't get it off. There is a locking collar and that is marked so looks as if someone else has tried before.
I even sprayed some nut breaker between the knob and collar hoping it would find its way into the thread but that didn't help either. Have also tried wearing Marigolds (suggested elsewhere) for a better grip but even that didn't help.

[Tyre Tread]

Try using a Boa. Did it for mine:
http://www.tool-net.co.uk/p-343990/boa-boababy.htm...

[EGB]

Glad you have had success, hooray. Have heared of it happening to others. Perhaps we should inspect that m8 bolt before it breaks.
And replace with a stronger stainless.