Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I am putting my piles-of-stuff-in-boxes '69 Federal (chassis # 0963) back together, and I can't see how the outer sleeve of the handbrake cable I have can possibly reach over to the hole next to the steering column over on the left side. First of all, it makes no sense to me that the same P/N for that cable is shown for RHD and LHD in any listing I can find, A050J0005. Doesn't LHD require a longer cable?


Examining the cable, I'm wondering if the sleeve of the cable I have is incomplete, perhaps broken and only part of it is there?




Can someone tell or show me the routing of the cable in the LHD engine bay, and tell me about how long your outer sleeve is? This one appears to be about 25 inches.

Thanks!

Where is the handbrake cable handle on a RHD car? If it is next to the door on the right, I reckon the lengths would be the same.

LHD and RHD same the same just mirrored. The cable exits the cabin above the steering column, runs past the engine mount, does a 180 and the adjuster is threaded into the engine mount.

I adjusted mine the other week and then ends looked similar to yours. 25" could be about right to run down the engine bay and do a 180 back to the engine mount.

Oh God, I think I know what happened - is the entire handbrake system mirrored RHD/LHD, including what side of the chassis the cable runs though, and which side the handbrake "tree" is mounted on in the back? Every picture I saw had the cable and tree on the right side, and I assembled it like that - for a LHD car, is the whole thing moved to the left?

Where's that smiley where you bang your head into a wall repeatedly?

This will do:

OK, now I'm confused. My cable runs from the tree in the back on the right through a hole in the right side of the frame into the tunnel. There is no such frame hole on the left side. I do see where there are mounting holes to move the tree over to the left side, and could flip that over (with great pain) - but if so, where does the cable go from there?

So:

1) For a LHD, does the cable run diagonally through the tunnel, from the right rear to the left front? Or if not, how does it get into the left side of the tunnel from the back?

2) Could someone post a picture of the mounting of the front end of the cable? How the "adjuster is threaded into the engine mount" as mbell said? I don't see how to do that.

Thanks for you patience - remember, this is my first one and I got it pretty much disassembled!

OK. all sorted out and installed!

That diagonal run through the tunnel just never occurred to me; seems Colin was a little schizophrenic there, as they also put left-side mounting holes in for the tee, to mirror the whole setup in back, but I guess they were never used.

I was kind of wondering what that threaded hole in the frame engine mount was for!

So all set, thanks everyone.

Glad you got it sorted. I was only thinking of the engine bay part when I said "mirrored". Probably should have thought it through a little more and been a bit clearer with what I was saying.

Agree with your conclusion that the tree stays right hand side and the cable runs diagonally across the chassis.

I would have thought that running the cable diagonally through the chassis backbone and leaving the rear handbrake tree on the RH side for a LH drive car would have caused problems with excessive cable wear at the points of direction change through the chassis. I would have thought moving the tree to the other side of the chassis would have been the way Lotus did it ?. I should have looked more closely at the handbrake assembly on the LH drive Elan I looked at a couple of weeks ago

cheers
Rohan

rgh0 wrote:I would have thought that running the cable diagonally through the chassis backbone and leaving the rear handbrake tree on the RH side for a LH drive car would have caused problems with excessive cable wear at the points of direction change through the chassis. I would have thought moving the tree to the other side of the chassis would have been the way Lotus did it ?. I should have looked more closely at the handbrake assembly on the LH drive Elan I looked at a couple of weeks ago

cheers
Rohan

On my +2 frame, there are holes to mount the tree on the L or the R, but there is only a hole for the cable on the R. I agree, it would have made perfect sense to also mirror the back end, and I suspect (given the unused tree holes on the L) they were going to ... and somebody figured out they didn't have to so they didn't put the other frame hole in.

Your theory may vary.