A Potpourri Of Quick Projects…

Since I’ve grown weary of multi-month projects, I decided this week to take on a potpourri of quick projects to feed my inner desire for a quick feeling of accomplishment.

I started with my parking brake assembly. When I took the parking brake assembly off back in March, I noted that the assembly was in need of some love:

Prior to removal, the parking brake would happily engage, but take considerable effort to disengage. A dose of oil in the moving parts fixed that right up. I still need to sand blast and paint the assembly but it’s good to know when I do I’ll work good as new.

There as one other problem with the assembly I didn’t call out at the time – the fact that the brake release handle was completely missing:

At the time, I noted the AWOL part and sometime between now and then I ordered a shiny new billet aluminum handle to install:

All would have been well with the world save for one thing. The shiny new billet aluminum handle didn’t attach to the brake release lever.

The problem was that the brake release level had a swedge attachment with little “fins” to keep any handle on:

The handle itself expected to have the brake release handle thread into it like a nut and bolt would thread together.

The first order of business to fix this was (of course) a trip to the parts store to get a tap and die set:

Taps are used to create threads in otherwise threadless holes allowing bolts to be screwed into them. Dies are used for the opposite – creating threads on round cylinders of metal allowing the metal to bolt into something else.

In this case, I needed to use a die and a die wrench on my brake release lever. The process is fairly easy, you find the die size you need (which I did by figuring out what size and thread of bolt fit into my handle), apply oil to the metal to be cut and then attach the die inside its wrench to the metal and start turning:

As you turn, the die cuts into the metal and creates the threads that you need. After about 20 minutes of carefully cutting into the metal a bit, backing the tool out to clean it, adding more oil and repeating the process, I ended up with a threaded brake release lever:

The threading was done so that when I screwed the handle on and tightened it, the handle would be level with the dashboard with the writing right-side-up. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Then it was on to the next small project of the week. Cleaning and painting the parking brake assembly and the floor pan plugs.

Neither were in very presentable condition:

However, with a dash of media blasting and a few coats of primer and paint both came out looking like new:

Aaand that was it for the week. It was a nice, self-contained potpourri of accomplished small projects.