Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Great, thanks, thought as much after a bit of research. Hopefully not needed.

Today my short handbrake cable snapped. After investigation it has pinged off at the driver side wheel. Thankfully the short cable looks much less of a faff than the long one. The long cable goes from the handbrake lever then across the torsion bar to the passenger side wheel. The short one joins by a nut and bolt on a bracket mid torsion bar and connects to the driver side wheel.

£51 inc. vat from OPC, arrives Thursday. You can get the same cable at places like Design911 and VW Heritage for double the price. There must be so many people that simply don't know to always try OPC first and that you also qualify for a classic discount as a Porsche classic owner. Would have been £58 inc. vat without discount.

Planning to fit Thursday afternoon, weather looks like it will be nice. Cutting it fine for Saturday road trip departure but glad it pinged at home rather than 300 miles away.

Then I will be starting my new business venture, Design944, aimed at selling all OPC parts at double the price and lead time. Should be lucrative!

Stuart

That's a fantastic idea.

Design 911 are thieving flea bitten sons of motherless goats.

Anyone know anybody in Scotland that does flywheel resurfacing?

No. But I would highly recommend AMAC engineering in Northallerton as the place to go. 2 Scottish brothers and sons run the show. Alistair was my contact when they done my engine build. Absolutely top class operators and know 944 engines well. I'm sure sorting a flywheel would be no bother to them. Prices were also very good.

Thank you.

Got the handbrake cable fitted today but feck me, that is not a job to do on axle stands. I was practically licking the torsion bar with so little ground clearance. Damn fiddly as well around there and with everything about 3 inches from my eyes, it could easily be classed as torture!

Here is the old cable looking rather broken (you do have to look close as I laid the broken bit down near where it snapped!):



Not a job I ever want to to again but here is a brief synopsis.

Removed the guard plate (4 x 17mm bolts) to get access mid torsion bar to where the short cable joins to the long cable. Took an eternity to find the retaining clip with eyes so close to target and not enough room for a full finger wiggle. Eventually it came off quite easily. Then I could remove the 10mm nut and bolt that holds the cable on and remove the broken cable. Magic. So I thought, I'll just get the new cable attached here and then we are plain sailing at the wheel side to deal with the hub. Utter torture with no clearance but I finally find a way to contort myself and get the nut and bolt done up. All good. Then I have to slide the rubber boot back on the cable, as it had to be pulled back to get the cable through the tight as a gnat's chuff bracket. This took half an hour and a whole plethora of swear words to sort, did I say there was no room to work, yes I think I did!

All happy with myself at this point, I remove the caliper and brake disc, and realise all the handbrake shoes and gubbins need to come off, never mind, easy enough, done that only a few days ago. So I charge on, strip it all off and the lever bracket thing comes straight out, still attached to broken bit of cable. I have this in my hand when I realise I hadn't taken a mental note of the orientation, bollox! After much fiddling and f'king about I sussed out what was needed. Great, let's feed the new cable in now. Not great, the f'king thing doesn't go far enough to allow me to connect it! Super duper, I'm having a quick break contemplating removing the cable again (was not fun) and was most pee'd off with proceedings.

Then a bit of a eureka moment, maybe I can adjust the cable in car and let out some slack? Nope, here's a better idea, just unbolt the handbrake lever, it's only 2 x 13mm bolts and then we should be good. Anyone ever tried this without removing the seat? If not, don't, it's a nightmare. Anyway after performing miracles under the torsion bar I was undeterred, and got the thing off, seat in place, and hey presto, just enough room now to get the cable connected at the hub. An absolute canter to connect the cable back on, much like assembling a Kinder Egg toy, then set about the handbrake shoes and springs. They were not playing ball, took me ages and lots of swear words to get the bottom spring in, and then the rest was easy. Until I had to reconnect the handbrake lever with seat in place but 10 minutes of slick finger action sorted that. Time to whack the back disc back on now.

Then took another short break before plucking up the courage to try the lever, have I f'ked anything up, entirely plausible after the 3 hours of Hell and confusion I had just came through...........f it, here goes, and it worked! How good did that feel!

Back to the wheel and put the caliper on. Those spacer washers on the rear calipers are also torture by the way, but they gave in quite quickly thankfully. Then it was just one more potholing trip left to bolt on the guard plate and stick on a couple of cable ties to secure the cable to the beam. Boom, job done, easy!

I need a lie down.

Stuart

Yep, been there, got the T shirt. I ended up doing both as I did not want any sort of repetition however easier one is over the other.
Anyhoo, 6 hrs and I have the flywheel off today. Two dowels (cs and reference) won't budge and just about disintegrated. They'll have to be removed before resurfacing. It's handy that it's going to a machine shop anyway.

Glasgow bound - maybe tomorrow. Fancy hooking up for a coffee S?

Yes can do. Would need to be between 10-12 or 2-3 if that suits you?

PM sent.

Replied

I use a place in Larbert, quick turnaround and cheap.

Anyone with a surface grinder can do it which is most engineering shops. Will only need the hard spots removed & any scoring.

I got mine done at WOSE - West of Scotland Engineers in Glasgow. Picked it up today and i'm at the stage of getting the box back on. He even provided a film of the process, lathed the same amount off the flywheel where the bolts for the pressure plate go and provided a job report. There was a slight taper on the flywheel face. Seemed to know what he was doing and said he does many.
The other thing he mentioned is that the more modern a flywheel was, the worse the quality of the metal - they can chatter during the process of removing metal and my flywheel was straightforward.
You could see blue in the metal around for at least 170 deg., now gone.
Cross fingers. I'll know tomorrow.

I washed my 968 coupe on Monday and then went to Dorridge (just south of Birmingham) for some matters I had to deal with and drove it home again. I filled it up with fuel because on Friday we (my wife and I) are going to a funeral in Chelmsford in it, a 300 mile round trip.
The 968 is an amazing car.
David

The Blue will be a heat spot as well as a hard spot. If you'd reassembled it without skimming it would have juddered like hell.