Front parking brake cable Gen one

pragmatic

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Ordered a new one but need to remove the old one. I have the console off and pulled the inner cable from the sheath. I will need to remove the sheath to install the new cable. The cable snakes back toward the rear seat. I can get the front half off but how is the rear (of the front cable) connected where it leaves the car? Mine has broke at the equalization bar. Hope I don't need to drop the heat shield and exhaust.
 
I can look under mine for your answer tonight. It is up on the lift for the winter, which makes getting that answer easy. It still has the heat shield in place as well, so my answer should be valid. I do know that it comes pretty close to being protected by the exhaust heat shield.
 
Appreciate that. I was able to do a little exploring, the front half goes back under the carpet. I removed the inner cable and used it to measure where the equalization bar is (just past the end of the heat shield). I think I may luck out. I believe the outer cable passes through a hole in the body with a grommet and nothing else holding it in. I'll explore more when the replacement cable arrives. Hopefully I won't have to remove any carpeting and just have to snake the cable through the carpet after removing the old one.
 
Looks possible, if not, yuck! The gas tank shield is actually the obstruction to overcome. I think that the cable is like the caliper end of the parking brake cable, and a circular compression is all that is needed to pull the cable out of the equalizer. It almost looks like mine is about to fail, too! 20161213_215251.jpg

20161213_215251.jpg
 
That's very different from the 2nd gen equalizer.
 
The end of mine had broken (rusted) off. I have the equalizer sitting on my desk now. Once the new cable comes in I'll see how hard this is to snake. The factory manual gives a very short non-descriptive explanation of changing the cable. With no mention of how the rear half is routed or if it is attached to the bracket (hard to tell from your phots).
 
You put the end of the cable (metal part) through the large part of the keyhole that you see in the picture, then you slide the cable down into the narrow part.
 
I know how its attached to the equalizer bar. Its how does it get from in the car to out of the car and is there a clip holding the outer cable to the bracket under the car that needs to be released but I can't get to the clip.
 
How about no parking brake? Parking brakes are over rated anyhow.
 
With no parking brake I would have to shut off the car and leave it in gear every time I get out (manual transmission). Been there, done that, no thanks.
 
It would also leave you with no backup at all to the hydraulic brake system.
 
If you have ever replaced a rear caliper and had to take the parking brake cable out of the bracket on the caliper, this cable seems to incorporate that same technique. I can see it in the photo. It is an expanding barbed metal piece that pushes through, then pops to its latched condition. I usually use a 13 or 14 mm box end 12 point wrench to get the barbs to tuck in enough to clear the hole. Shooting some PB blaster at that piece before the removal attempt can't hurt. I would assume that the cable has no other hold down brackets between the floor penetration and the bracket by the equalizer, since it is a pretty short run. The grommet on the floor end should be a pretty good place-holder for the relatively short cable run.
 
With no parking brake I would have to shut off the car and leave it in gear every time I get out (manual transmission). Been there, done that, no thanks.

Just need a couple of bricks to park it on steep grades.

I kid ... good luck with the fix, should be able to feed the cable through somehow. They managed at the manufacturing plant. You'd figure there would be a retaining clip where it goes through the floor.
 
You guys are overthinking this. The cable jacket clip is clearly shown in the pictures. That's why I thought he was asking about the cable end attachment instead. There's no reason to lock the cable jacket anywhere other than its two ends.
 
The jacket is above the heat shield, mufflers, driveshaft, fuel tank shroud. I could just get a dremel up there and cut off the retaining clip. Removing the cable required removing the rear seat and center console. I ended up peeling back the carpet near the top of the center tunnel attaching a vise grip to the jacket and with a pry bar against the seat riser moving it ~1 inch. Had to do this 5 or 6 times until it was free enough that I could pull the jacket out from inside the car. Tried snaking the new one in and got no where. Pushed a wire pull through from the inside and it got hung up under the car somewhere. Took quite a while to get the wire pull out. After much back and forth it did free up and I tried again. This time I was able to get it through the bracket and pull the new cable through. I still can not get it through far enough to attach or to see the outer jacket under the car. The outer jacket is hitting something unseen and will not go far enough through the hole in the floor to get to the bracket. It seems to be hung up somewhere above the fuel tank shroud. I'm done for the evening. Will try some more tomorrow after work, unless we get snow. This is every bit a pain as I imagined. Would have been simpler to run a new inner cable through the outer jacket from under the car and silver solder a new end on in the car (of course I would need to know the length and acquire the proper ends.
 
Joys of battling with a stubborn playing hard to get retaining clip. Spun balljoint is a total good time also.
 
No way that cable can be snaked through. If you look under the back seat there is a small Y shaped relief in the metal floor under the seat, near the center toward the back of the car. The cable needs to go through that. It is offset from the hole that the cable exits the cabin from. I cut open the sheet metal under the seat (several small holes with the dremel tool). Even with it opened I had a hard time pushing the cable between the floor and the fuel tank shroud. It's done and seems to be working. Now to get some metal to patch the holes, put the snow tires on, get it inspected and drive to the slopes.
 

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