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Re: Heater cables, shipfitters disease

To: "Bob D." <bobmgtd@insightbb.com>, <mgs@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: Heater cables, shipfitters disease
From: Barney Gaylord <barneymg@ntsource.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 23:58:51 -0600
At 10:58 PM 10/28/02 -0500, Bob D. wrote:
>....
>BTW: I just love the handbrake cable design, with the grease zerk in the 
>middle. Now there's a part designed to last!  :-)

Yeah, but don't expect it to last forever.  Mine only lasted 43 years and 
about 320,000 miles.  The outer elastomer jacket finally started to crack, 
allowing the grease to ooze out near the zerk fitting so it wasn't getting 
to the ends of the cable.  When it began sticking in cold weather early 
last winter I replaced it.  I suppose I could have wrapped the whole thing 
in a few layers of vinyl tape, but I'm getting lazy in my old age.  Does 
this mean I'm rich now that I can afford to buy the new one?

For the record, my tach drive cable had a deteriorated outer jacket where 
it was rubbing on the carburetor heat shield.  This was allowing some 
leakage of engine oil which would tend to blow on the exhaust head pipe.  I 
split a spare length of 5/16" fuel hose down the side, applied some blue 
RTV sealant to the inside, wrapped it around the cable and applied a few 
small hose clamps to hold it in place.  That worked like a charm.  Must 
have stopped at least 1% of the total oil leakage from the engine.

Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg

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