MOT handbrake questions tips wanted

On or around Sat, 26 Mar 2005 20:05:00 +0000, dave enlightened us thusly:

supposed to, yeah. I know someone who did a similar job and has a cable which pulls the footbrake pedal down...

Someone suggested that you can substitute Transit backplates for the LR rear brakes, and thereby get ones with handbrake levers in 'em. Dunno if that's true, though.

Fiddle brakes are illegal on road-going vehicles from what I've heard talking to the Class 1 Modified guys who build their own design of non-road-going 4x4s for competition use. You might get away with it but if not it could be more hassle than it's worth.

hiya,

it wouldnt be a fiddle brake as a fiddle brake, all it would be would be is a lever to apply a brake, fitting a ratchet system would hold it on, but, i would be using the existing brake lines, dont know if, but it makes sense if the hanbrake is independant of all other systems.

im interested in the transit backplate thought, Austin, is there anyway you can find out off this guy if its viable, or give him my e-mail to contact me directly

andyatbadlrcdotcom

thanks

andy

On or around Sat, 26 Mar 2005 22:11:30 +0000, dave enlightened us thusly:

he doesn't do email, nor did he in the end do it. I don't know whether he didn't do it 'cos it didn't work or just 'cos he never got around to it.

some of the transits have the right diameter brakes. You'd have to work out which one to hunt brakeplates off.

can't tell much more than that. Just that I'd heard it could be done.

You can forget " devices to hold the brake pedal down " the hand brake has to be a mechanical device , and a seperate means of operation. So no hydraulics then or fiddle brakes etc. steve the grease

Why?

because as much as i love land rover, they made ( to todays standards) a crap gearbox. as i drive my series on the road every day and pull a

21 foot caravan once a month.

now i have a far superior engine than the original 2 1/4 petrol ( daihatsu 2.8 turbo) the weak link is now the transmission, im going thru the gears as fast as Mr schumacker and even with overdrive it sounds a bit scary at 70.

so what to do with the gearbox, well theres no better box for a particular engine,than the one the manufacturer intended it to be mated up to.

so mating the daihatsu box upto the daihatsu engine would probably move the weak link further down the chain to the diffs, ive got rangey diffs to swap to if needed.

so id have a 5 speed box, which should need very little maintenance and be very quiet, it should pull my caravan, drive around town respectfully, i could actually SELECT gears with ease,and i could low box it for the trials and green lanes.what more do i want,

Andy

Ok. try fitting the rangie diffs, and a SIII box. That way you get the better ratio transmission, courtesy of the diffs, you get a full syncro box, and you still retain a handbrake.

Unless the trick someone suggested using transit brakes works, you are going to have a right royal pain of a time trying to rig a handbrake up, bearing in mind that it is illegal to have a hydraulic parking brake.

I rather think that if you can fit the transit hubs then connecting them up to the handbrake mechanism should be a doddle.

I'm not sure how the daihatsu box compares to the S3 box in terms of gear ratios but I expect the S3 are all lower geared so your daihatsu box will make tings more civilised on-road.

Have you checked the dimensions of the daihatsu engine/gearbox to see if the gear selecter(s) will land in a reasonable spot in the cab?

Range Rover diffs are higher geared and I understand stronger than S3 but I'd not fit them until you have driven with the new gearbox to see if you want the drivetrain increased in ratio even more.

Is it perhaps possible to fit a land rover handbrake assembly to the back of the transfer box? I'm not oversure how that'd work but it'd be the first thing I'd look at.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

hiya,

i could fit a disk with hydraulic calliper, with no real hassle. but alas i think its illegal to have a hydraulic park brake.

the daihatsu box has all kinds of conical covers on the rear, which doesnt look too promising to fit the landy transmission brake.

so the tranny backplates seem the most appealing at the minuite. but im just 1/4 of the way thru manufacturing my own exhaust (from scratch) what a bleedin pain.

after that its weld the bulkhead back up, fix the bulkhead support and then fit loads and loads of soundproofing, then test it. and after ive got 12 months ticket, then ill swap gearbox`s and that way it gives me

11 month to sort the handbrake out, but in reallity it`ll be 10 month of driving with no handbrake and " oh my god 4 weeks to sort the handbrake out".

cheers

andy