It's nice to know that Michel considers yours truly as one of his friends ! I'll take it anytime though.
This was a thread that was the germination of several hours of frustrated attempts to remove a split pin, first of all in the boiling heat (34 degrees) and then the following morning, on my 450 that's been parked in my back yard for about three to four years.
It all started when I bought this 450SE for the upholstery that was to go into a 6.9. So, the interior was stripped and I was going dismantle the rest until I started digging into things and found almost complete service and maintenance record, original sales document etc. etc. This car needed saving.
As can happen quite easily, and it has to me over the years, subletting some work to others can turn into nightmares and this was such an occasion. The car had a small amount of rust under the accelerator pedal, and I knew this panel beater who was exceptionally gifted with some of the work he had done for me. So I asked him to repair the rust, which was duly carried out.
It wasn't until sometime much later (say about two years) that I discovered that the handbrake cable had been disconnected, but I did not know why and where until last week - right behind the accelerator pedal ! I started having a closer look as I needed to get the handbrake to work as the car will be for sale when I have complewted the re-installation of the interior. It didn't take long to realize why the guy had never re-connected the cable - one just couldn't do it.
The head of this very stiff cable feeds through an abutment bracket at virtually right angles, and you have to physically pull through the INNER cable to try and attache the nipple head of the cable to a floating bracket that is attached to the bottom of the handbrake lever by means of a FLUSH fitting clevis pin and split pin. Holding the inner cable clear of the outer one proved impossible on account of space restrictions and it became a necessity to remove both the split and clevis pins. That split pin that had to come out, before I could remove the clevis pin and attach the flexible bracket to the head nipple of the cable ! This was just absolute frustration - right in the front corner behind the accelerator pedal and the job took about six hours, as well as a 45 kilometer return trip just to get a special pair of pliers - one could say that I should have had them in the first place, but you do start on a job not always knowing what tools are required. Anyway,, it's all done now, but I don't ever really want to do this sort of a job again.
You have to ask yourselfthough why the guy should have disconnected the cable in the first place. I suspect chances were that he would not have been aware of the degree of difficulty involved in re-attaching it. If the clevis pin had been fitted the other way round, those difficulties would never have arisen. A sad, boring and frustrating tale. Regards Styria
