In order to improve the usability of the hand brake, I acquired a lever mechanism from a Range Rover Classic. A picture of the lever is shown below:
Setting the new hand brake in place gives an idea of the planned improvement.
Using a cardboard template traced from the bottom of the hand brake assembly, I drilled the cable and mounting holes:
The distance from the cable entry point on the base plate to the connecting point on the lever is further on the Range Rover hand brake, so the cable had to be adjusted to gain the extra length.
The cable was then attached to the lever using the pin and split pin from the original Defender hand brake. (Also shown here is the sound deadening I added whilst I had the cubby box removed.)
A small slice was made in the carpet in order to allow the hand brake and cable to pass through:
At this point, I noticed the hand brake handle was just touching the carpet beside the transfer box stick. With plenty of play between the resting position and the first click of the hand brake, I decided to add some adjustment to set the handle height. This was gone by drilling and tapping the resting plate at the back of the hand brake lever to accomodate a small M4 screw.
The hand brake lever position before and after adjustment can be seen below:
The existing grommet and hand brake switch wire were reused with the hole for the switch wire being drilled behind the hand brake.
The holes for the original hand brake were covered up with some adhesive sound proofing and covered with a small steel plate using the original mounting holes. The bolts were upgraded to stainless steel and treated with some Comma Wax'n'seal before fitting.
The pictures below show the final result:
