Hand brake pawl

[Colin Aitchison]

My Audi Coupe GT has a hand brake problem, the hand brake works if you hold it up but there is some grinding and clicking when you let it go, basically it won't stay on, I know there is a ratchet and pawl system that holds the handbrake on, so off with the gator for a look, the single tooth was missing from the pawl, looks like a nice easy job as I do have one from my Ur quattro spares, below the car to remove the M6 nut and hand brake cables, in car now, two wires and four M10 bolts and withdraw the handbrake and mechanism, the pawl can be remove and replaced without removing the handbrake form the car but past owner has not refitted the spring clip to the end of the pin but has put a tack of weld on the pin to lock it in place, out with the grinder and bye bye tack weld, pin fall out as dose the pawl with the missing tooth, bugger, the coupe GT pawl is not the same as the Ur quattro, photo below left pawl spare from Ur quattro, right pawl with missing tooth from coupe GT.



Got the part number from 7zap.com but can't locate any on internet, sounds like a call to Stirling Audi on Monday but that conversation will end with "Sorry sir that part is NLA", so
what to do, Hmmmm, make one, it may need to be hardened steel, Hmmmm, get the Mig welder out and add some weld to the area where the missing tooth should be and reshape it with a grinder and file to form the tooth, but first draw round the old shape with the missing tooth just in case you make a mess of it, photo below of reworked pawl now fitted to car and click click click working, funny thing when filling the the original pawl metal it didn't feel like hardened steel, Owell we will see how long it lasts.