I put a new parking brake cable on my Alpine a few years ago and it was never
really right from the beginning; I had to take up all of the slack in it in
order to get the brakes to hold, and this was with relatively new rear shoes
that were properly adjusted. Well, it didn't take much stretching of the
cable for the 'just barely holding' to turn into 'not really very effective'
and I just replaced it today with a new one. However, that one is also too
long and after a bit of modification (I added a few extra threads on the
adjusting bolt) it is now at the 'just barely holding' stage. The two cables
are from totally different manufacturers, leading me to think that it is
something about my car, not the cables. It is, after all, an LBC.
I have a couple of options for fixing the situation, but the easiest would be
to shorten the cable. The stock cable is about 1/8" steel and has a ferrule
crimped on it at the end. Moving the ferrule an inch would more than do the
trick. I don't trust my ability to crimp something new on securely enough and
was thinking about fabricating and welding in a new ferrule. Is that feasible
with a MIG welder? I've never heard of anyone welding cable, but it seems
possible. I certainly don't want this failing at the wrong time, so I'll
explore Plan B if this is a really bad idea.
Thanks.
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