Well I decided over the weekend to tackle the park brake relocation.
There was 2 ways I could do the cables.
1. Get custom made cables to mount in the original mounting points on the cradle.
2. Flip the original cables over, reroute them slightly and make custom brackets to hold them.
I chose option 2 because basically it cost nothing as apposed to getting big dollar custom cables.
The first few pics are what I have to work with once the original configuration is removed.
The original mounting point on the left which is now obselete.
First I clamped the park brake handle together so the bar I needed to bend didn't bend in the wrong spot.
The inner bar bent to its approximate new location so it faces the right way when mounted on the right side of the car.
The next couple of shots show where I cut the original park brake handle to allow me to bend it in the opposite direction.
And welded back together to face the right direction for the other side of the car.
Then I fabricated a bracket to weld to the floor on the other side of the car as it could no longer mount up against the side of the car. Not visible in that pic is the 10mm spacer I had to weld onto the back of the bracket on the rear bolt location to allow for the original park brakes unusual mountings shape. I also welded some flat nuts I made onto the original park brake handle so the bots going through the new mounting bracket have something to bolt into. No room there to hold a spanner later.
These 2 brackets are ones I made to mount the park brake cables to new locations on the cradle. I chose to run the cables on the front side (cat side) of the cradle as it was impossible to run the through the cradle without major mods and welding.
The right cable is now the left cable.
And the left cable is now the right cable.
An overhead shot showing the park brake handle mounted to the right side of the car. Of course I had to drill new holes through the firewall for the cable to exit the car.
A better overall view of the park brake inside the car on the right hand side.
Hard to fathom these shots if you are not familiar with the underside of your Fiero, but basically the different cable lengths means they are now mounted differently. On the cat side of the cradle as previously mentioned. I have the brackets bolted on for now but if the engineers say so I will have to weld them instead.
I stil have to make 2 new rubbers to seal the new holes in the firewal. Extend the park brake warning light cable to the opposite side of the car. Fill the old holes in the firewall where the cable used to come through. This I will just do with rubber seals. No need to weld it. All that shouldn't take more than an hour tomorrow.
When I get to the interior stage I will have to make a new boot for the park brake and cut both lower interior trim panels to get rid of the left side hole and indentation for where the park brake used to be, and add them to the right side.
When working under the car I found damage to the lower skirt and knew straight away someone had tried to jack the car in the past from the incorrect spot, so I dropped the cooling tube down to check for damage. Sure enough, there it is. As it is too expensive to import one into the country (because of size) I will remove the original at a later date and repair it by cutting out the offending section and welding in a new piece.
A pic of the Fiero as it now sits. Note the horrible finish on the front fascia thanks to the car bra that was on the car when I bought it. The fascia is a slightly different colour as well but I don't car too much about it as eventually I will get to a fair few body mods and I intend to resparay the whole car even though most of it is top notch. The wheels on the front are ones I bought for my 86 GT I used to have and never used them. So they are the wrong offset. As I cant get the same rims in the offset I need I spoke to a wheel place today who is going to mod my front ones (even though they are a 1 piece rim) to be a different offset. I will go into that at a later date. Yes the car looks like it is sitting high. Hasn't had a chance to settle after jacking it up to put the wheels on.
[This message has been edited by AusFiero (edited 06-23-2008).]
