Project SC300 Road Racer: Part 21 – Winter is Coming
Emergency brake handle unbolted from transmission tunnel
The emergency brake handle is attached to the transmission tunnel with two giant bolts.

Once it’s unbolted there, you can unbolt the two small bolts where the cable goes through underneath the car.

And this is when you use all of the four-letter words in your vocabulary, and then string several together in new and creative ways.

The emergency brake cable is essentially a Y shape and is in two pieces. The handle-side pulls on the two legs of the Y, and each of those legs is the cable you saw in the earlier picture that terminates at the knuckle on each side of the car.

At the interface between the two rear cable legs and the main handle cable is a little springy thingy with some slots. No problem, you can get that off.
Then, there’s one of those U-shaped metal things in a slot that holds the handle-side cable to the car.

And it’s exactly dead centered in the transmission tunnel.

Above the driveshaft.

Sigh.

I was NOT taking that damned driveshaft out, because the DriveShaft Shop unit is a single-piece affair that would mean having to drain the transmission and many more hours of work on the floor that would not be fun.

I tried to get at said U-shaped metal retaining clip with various tools and things and stuff and was getting no joy. My frustration was mounting, and it was late. I was nearing the end of my patience and my sanity. In a final rage-inspired fit I decided that I would attempt to pry the damned thing off with my fingers.

Somehow, miraculously, that worked. The cable was free! FREEDOM!

And time for a shower and bed. And probably some bourbon. No, definitely some bourbon.

 

Rear knuckle flopped over on lower ball joint
Much like the front knuckle, you can use your ball joint separator to pop the top ball joint and one of the lower arm ball joints.

Unfortunately, because of where the traction link attaches to the rear knuckle, the ball joint separator doesn’t actually have the right size and shape to securely yet onto the LCA’s ball joint.

 

Christian hitting socket with mini sledge on ball joint's nut
Since the LCA was coming off anyway, I took both the rear knuckle/hub assembly and the LCA off as a single unit.

It’s really not recommended, but, in a pinch, you can leave the nut threaded onto the ball joint and then put a socket on the nut. Fortunately the nut is a flanged nut where the face of the socket can press against the flange.

Then you can apply your BFH to the socket, which pushes on the nut’s flange, which pushes on the ball joint, which hopefully pops the ball joint without damaging the threads. But I was replacing the LCA anyway and it would have a new ball joint with it. So I wasn’t super concerned.

My friend Christian is swinging the hammer here. I don’t have cool ink or cool kicks.

Someone told me you can also use an air hammer to bust this stuff loose. I’m not sure how well that would work. Your mileage may vary.

6 comments

    1. Metal fatigue, I’ve seen hubs and bearings both let go on track cars. It’s also usually very difficult to remove the stuck on inner race without damaging the hub. Even if you do a lot of the time the hub is scored and scratched in the process and you risk spinning the hub inside the race once it’s installed.

  1. Pff, I’ve been running good tight junkyard hubs on my road race Camaro for years. It’s about a grand to upgrade to to the Corvette SKF hubs with the adapters. You’ll know when they’re bad, and if they were good last time out no need to waste money. They’re not going to suddenly explode and send you into the wall down the back straight at Road America. As far as popping ball joints with a hammer, it also works very well to just bash on the knuckle itself while leaving the nut loosely on. I rarely use a separator anymore, so much faster and easier to give it a few whacks and the boots and everything are reusable too. You’re definitely spending more than I would, but it should turn out like a show piece in the end. You gonna go with sphericals in the control arms?

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