e brake/emergency/park/parking brake cable repair

[Patcon]

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

Original cable ends

Ready to weld

Welded up

Snip the excess, then grind down

I filled this area with epoxy

Finished end

Edited May 8, 2011 by Arne

[Arne]

Nice work, and great write-up!

I edited the thread title to make the topic more obvious, merged the two threads and promoted it to "Tech Article".

Edited May 8, 2011 by Arne

[Patcon]

Thanks, Arne

I was hopeing to put enough key words into the title so a reasonable search would pick it up. There is a tremendous amount of good info on these forums, but finding it can be hard sometimes. I hope it helps...

Charles

[JLPurcell]

It seems that it would be simpler to terminate the cable using cable swages and a swaging tool.

JLP

[Patcon]

Most of the swaging tools I have seen are expensive and you would have to find the right size swage. As well as buy a box of swages. I considered that but opted for a technique that fit the tools I already had or that many people would have access to.

Thanks, Charles

[Oiluj]

You can et a manual swaging tool at West Marine or similar boat places for about $50. I did all the lifelines on my sailboat with one.

[Patcon]

I found some that were similarly priced. Then buy some swages, but if you are going to do only one cable, then you only need two and you only need the swager twice. For $3.60 of cable and $.98 of tee nuts I replaced the cable with the tools I had at hand. Both ways should work fine, but if I wanted a cable that matched the factory exactly I would just buy a new reproduction. The point was to get a satisfactory result as economically as possible.

Charles

[JLPurcell]

Lowes has a variety of swages that can be purchased in bags of 5, very inexpensive. They sell the tool for under $40 but due to them not having a tool in stock they sold me their display tool for $8.00. Timing is everything!!

[Patcon]

Agreed, timing is everything. I will have to look around the big box stores. I have never seen swaging tools in our Depot or Lowe's. That's interesting. I am a contractor and know the stores pretty well... I might have gone that route if I knew they had them in stock, but didn't want to have to order a tool online and wait and shipping, etc.

Charles

[JLPurcell]

Lowes, Hardware isle next to the bulk cable rolls.

[Patcon]

I finally got around to going to the Lowes hardawre aisle. They do carry the swaging tool ($20 or so). It looks like a set of large bolt cutters. It is interesting our Home Depot (where I shop more often) carries ferrules and stops does not have the swaging tool. FWIW

Charles

[Patcon]

A little more info, Jeff had a great idea on how to repair the out jackets on the parking brake cable.

The info can be found here

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/open-zcar-discussion/47863-lime-green-machine-restoration-thread-1972-240z-3.html