hello ppl. ive got a '77 datsun 810. i got it practically restored with a N45 motor swapped in it (to my knowledge). i recently had a mini electrical fire and all my ground wires got fried including my emergency brake cable. ive been searching for a new cable for a while now. does anyone know what i can replace it with? i want to do major work for my car but i do not know what is compatible with my model. help me please!

Which part of the cable burned? I don't have one but at least I can give you a part number if you can identify it from this diagram. Did that car once belong to Racer X (Ernie) or John Coffey?

Yes the car did belong to John Coffey before me. it seems to me from the picture that i have no idea what is wrong. after my ground shorted out, the only thing that i could make out was #18 dangling underneath my car glowing red. would i be able to replace the whole brake system and upgrade to something else?

I thought I recognized the car. John would be a good person to ask about upgrading the brake system. I have a 810 parts list which has all of the part numbers. I had hoped that, from that scan, you could identify the part you need. Amazingly, many of the mechanical parts are still available. There is also a member here, zcarnut, who has a nicely done 79 810 2dr that has done many mechanical mods and might be of help. My car is stock and I haven't really looked into the compatibility of other brake parts etc.

I swapped out the entire rear suspension crossmember in my 1979 810 with one from a 280ZX. Bolts right up. By doing this you get to replace the rear 810 drum brakes with disc brakes. You also get to use the ZX rear sway bar, something the 810's did not have. Use the ZX rear parking brake cable.

The only “jury rigging” required is to add an “extension” between items #6 and item #12 in the picture posted by Stephen. This is needed because the ZX cable (item #16) is not long enough. But this is no big deal to fix. You can use a flat 1" x 1/4" x 8" piece of metal or a piece of an old brake cable (which is what I did) secured with a hardware store cable clamp:

I also swapped out the 810 brake proportioning valve with the ZX one to maintain correct front-to-rear braking bias and used the larger diameter ZX master cylinder.

If you want to keep it stock then I would give my good friend Roger Schmidt of The Z Barn a call as he has several junker 810's (and he even has my old 810 rear crossmember which had a good working parking brake cable).