Alfasud handbrake cable

[Alfa.mg]

It must be coronavirus boredom but Im trying to build up the courage to change my handbrake cable.  Please someone talk me out of it!
No in all serious,  any tips or tricks?  My handbrake works but the outer sheath is damaged at adjustment end and is now acting as a spring, so when I take handbrake off it undoes udjustment.  I happen to have a good one lyong around. Im thinking if I get really stuck I may have to drop engine.

[bonno]

By the sound of it, it's quite a fiddly job and can be done without engine/gearbox removal.  Find link to a post on Alfaowner forum on the subject.
https://www.alfaowner.com/threads/alfasud-handbrake-cable-the-secret-trick.271475/

[rowan_bris]

Tie wire on the springs improves the process dramatically.

It must be coronavirus boredom but Im trying to build up the courage to change my handbrake cable.  Please someone talk me out of it!
No in all serious,  any tips or tricks?  My handbrake works but the outer sheath is damaged at adjustment end and is now acting as a spring, so when I take handbrake off it undoes udjustment.  I happen to have a good one lyong around. Im thinking if I get really stuck I may have to drop engine.

[Alfa.mg]

I had thought of wire,  ill give it a go.

[LukeC]

Many years ago in QLD, I had an garage call me and ask how long it takes to change a handbrake cable in an Alfasud... Couple of hours I probably said. Straight up they say: So you don't have to take to engine and gearbox out? I vaguely remember I had some system to do it with needle nosed vice grips etc (26+ years ago). They had been struggling for the best part of a day trying to do it and were just about to pull the engine... They dropped the car around 1/2 an hour later!

When I worked for Autotech in Canberra, they had a pair of 18" long tools. Basically file handles on long spring steel blades with 2 pronged forks on the end to hold and compress the ferrule/spring at the RH side. Job took less that an hour and you barely got your hands dirty.

[bazzbazz]

This seems appropriate in this instance -

If necessity is the mother of invention, then surely desperation is the father of it, for I have seen men with a necessity be very clever, yet wondered at how the desperate are driven to be downright bloody brilliant! - Baz