Brake cable replacement - tips

[SteveR]

Mine just failed MOT on low effort offside handbrake. 480GT M reg.
Having replaced a caliper I realised that the brake cable was damaged and stiffer than it should be and replaced it iaw haynes but without removing the heatshield. Then decided to do nearside which is where the fun began. The heat shield wends its way following the exhaust pipe so trying to push the cable through wont work cos its not a straight line to the brake balancing arm. I did not want to remove the heatshield cos I could see it would be a load of bother. I found one bolt, rather than the self tappers, which when undone allowed the heat shield to spring away enough to get my wrist in and feed the handbrake through to the balancing arm. The ends of the cable have a little bar which sits into the balancing arm and the little bar has to go through a hole at the end of the heat shield. The pattern parts I had were slightly bigger than the originals so I filed a radius on each end of the bar so that it would go through the hole. Note that the radius must only be done on one side cos the other needs to be square to sit in the balancing arm.
This will become clear when you do the job.
Took it back for retest and thumbs up - no advisories.
All that effort so I could sell it maybe.