Parking (Emergency) brake cable repair

I had done some searching for emergency brake repairs and where to go from here. I had a broken parking brake on a 240z. I took the idea that Beandip had and went with that. I went to Home Depot and bought about 8' of 1/8" unjacketed and 3/32 jacketed cable. I also bought some 1/" tee nuts

like these

The problem I saw was not replacing the cable but was how to swage the end with the little cylindrical shape and make it hold. I removed the old cable and rethreaded with new cable. I chose to use the unjacketed cable because it was thicker and the exisitng cable was unjacketed. I then placed a tee nut over the end of the cable with the spiked flange at the very end (the end towards the wheel). I took my mig welder and welded around the end of the cable on the flange side. I didn't weld from the inboard side because I was worried about buring the cable in two and that would make it too short. I then clipped the flange off as close as possible and finished shaping on my bench grinder.

The inboard end of the remaing tee nut did not fit very close to the cable so for some extra insurance I used JB Weld to fill the cylinder on the inboard side. I assembled the cable all up and installed all of the springs and brackets etc. I then ran the excess through the other tee nut and welded the other end where I marked it for length. I made the new cable 1/2" to 3/4" shorter than the original to account for the stretching of the original cable. When I welded the second tee nut I accidently burned the cable off, which is OK but substanitiated my fear of not welding from the inside.

I epoxied the second end and lubed everything up real well and installed. Seams to work real well and has a very factory look. Sorry I don't have any other pictures. If you don't have access to a welder, epoxy might hold the ends if you get them degreased properly. The tee nuts have threads inside them so they will bond very easily. Or as an alternative you might be able to solder the ends on the cable. If the cable is clean and fluxed the silver should bond to it OK. I thought I would post this up since the cables are hard to find in good used condition and putting a new $300 cable on a car I have $1000 in didn't make sense at the moment. Hope this helps and have a good Mother's Day

Charles

I didn't have any pictures when I made the cable so I went back and made an end so I could make pictures, since everyone likes pictures