Since the chassis came with a set of Wilwood parking brake calipers I decided that I should buy a set of cables and a lever to make them functional. And since the chassis came with Earls line clamps – read high dollar – after laying out how and where I was going to run the cables I order eight 3/8″ polished clamps at $4.50 each. I have to say what Earls considers to be polished and what I consider polished to be is a long ways apart… so after spending 2 hrs at the buffing wheel I installed the cables with the shiny clamps. Side note, since I was ordering the clamps I also bought some 5/8″ x 18 thin fine pitch nyloc nuts to replace all the ones that had gone missing from the suspension over the last 14 years. Of course I only needed six nuts, but had to buy a minimum of 25… sigh.
Since both of my cars were evacuated to the UniSource parking lot, in case the Cedar Fire blew up, I could lower the lift holding the 40’s body and check out body bolt locations etc. The frame has all the right holes in the right places! Why it took me this long to confirm that, I don’t know. I also took the opportunity to mock up the new floor panels so that I could figure where to mount the brake lever. Looks like I will have plenty of room on the tunnel behind the shifter and in front of the seat.
I am beginning to run out of room on the inside frame rails… still need to install a 2/0 power cable and a 2/0 ground cable to connect the battery which will be in the trunk with the engine etc… That will pretty much us what little room I have left on the right side. The left side will hold the fuel line from the tank that is mounted behind the rear axle to the fuel rails on the engine. Looks like I will be buying more Earls clamps eh…
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Parking Brake Cables Install
Next up on the punch list is to bench bleed the master brake cylinder, install it and bleed the brake lines. After that I will mate the engine and transmission and install it into the chassis. Once that is done it will be time to get the body down off the lift and install the new firewall and mount the body to the chassis so that the floor can be installed. I also need to clearance and fit the new inner fender aprons which need to go down to the valley for powder coating as does the front seat frame and mount, and the four wheels as well. I also will be taking the hood down to have it louvered. Then we get to start the primer/blocking dance… can’t wait!