I had a sheet from someone about using a turnbuckle in the rear brake lines to enable efficient adjustment, but this required going to a chandler to create a new connection in the brake cable.
Old style brake cables used to have a threaded adjuster which seems to have been lost over the years of remanufacturing.
Has anyone come up with cunning adaptions using threaded clevis - or whatever - to successfully add what was lost to our modern parts? (and to stop having to use the sloppy external cable adjuster route?)
Funny you should ask this but I made up this tool just a couple of days ago. It’s an old adjustable brake end with a bar rod fixed through the clevis pin. Tighten the tool on the free end of the brake cable and lever against the cross member until the cable is tight enough then fasten the adjuster nut.
excellent, but this still comes in the category of a work-around for a part which could surely be improved for better inline trimming over time?
Here is the mod that I saw some while ago... but requiring swaged ends. I'm wondering whether the grubscrew or bolt-held wire rope clips used in rigging would be safe enough for use for DIY use without resorting to expensive tools.
Naively I would think that rigging screws used on a 30/40 foot ocean going sailer to hold the mast up would be more than strong enough to stand the foot (or even the hand) brake pressure on a Seven!
Currently I am trying to adjust the M/Minor hand brake cables on my AG which has an all Minor hydraulic set up....I'm getting there, but my "problem" is cables that are too long. In terms of strength the hand brake connection at the backplate is a link made from about 20g steel strip bent into a loop!
I have some new cable shorteners (now frowned on, if not downright illegal), but won't use them! (One of my sevens in the late 50s had so many of these horrors strung along the brake cables you could hardly see the cable!)
I like the bottlescrew mod in preference to a butterfly adjuster. The butterfly adjuster introduces springiness in the cable which is not what you want. In the absence of old fashioned screw-adjustable ends it looks equally good, and in my experience a properly fitted bottlescrew will survive the cable. When a failure occurs on yacht rigging it is usually the cable which fails before the adjuster.
When using MM hand brake cables on a hydraulic system cut the original ends off and use brake cable ends from our A7 suppliers then you can make the cables any length as they are clamped in the cable ends.
I prefer to see the loop round a proper former: any unsupported loop causes springiness which you don't want, but the U-bolt clamps are probaly OK. The properly swaged crimps can be done quickly at most boatyards.
Hi Jon,
Two of the bulldog grips will suffice on any brake cable on an austin. You will never load then up to the point that they slip if correctly applied.
The load on a yachts rigging is immense its measured in tons (not size 8 Feet Pounds )
These are two adjusters I have made.
The top one consists of a fork threaded female 5/16" BSF. I think it might be the adjusting fork for a rear Bowden set up. If not, one of the standard cable clamp forks could be drilled out and tapped. I then cut out a small 1/4" thick connector and drilled two 5/16" holes about 1" apart, as in the third item down. Two cuts from one end to a hole will give you a slot into which a length of studding can be welded. (A bolt with its head cut off would have done just as well, the threaded section does not need to be very long).
The second one is simply an 8mm turn buckle, with the little link connecting it to the cable fork. The thing about this one is that there is no welding or altering standard parts, and best of all it can be adjusted without removing any clevis pins. I did consider making an 8mm. adjusting eye like the top one to screw into the RH side of the turn buckle, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble and in any case the welder just ran out of gas!
cliff.
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