The button on the parking brake of my '95 Outback's parking brake
> suddenly flew across the car when my wife released the parking brake.
> The button failed as the plastic threaded part of the button snapped
> off. There was not enough thread to replace the button. I have since
> learned this is a common problem. Here is a fix that save you hundreds > of dollars.
>
> What I did was:
>
> 1. Cleaned out the interior of the button using a Dremel tool
> 2. I had on hand brass tubing that fit snugly into the hollowed out > button
> 3. I didn't insert the tubing all the way, just enough to check the
> fit. I wanted to get it out again ;-)
> 4. I found a brass nut with the correct thread size. It is metric. I > forget the size.
> 5. A neighbor, who has a lathe, trimmed down the brass nut so it fit
> snugly into the brass tube.
> 6. I cut the brass tube to length, without inserting it, of course.
> You'll have to measure carefully.
> 7. I soldered the nut into the brass tube.
> 8. I used a moisture cure urethane adhesive. I coated the inside of
> the button with it.
> 9. I used my vise as a press to carefully press the tubing into the
> button. The nut end was then flush with the open end of the button.
> 10. I had to fish the threaded rod out and into position.
> 11. I wrapped some masking tape around the button so I could have a
> good grip on it and not mar it. Leave some clearance where it fits
> into the parking brake handle.
> 12. After a lot of swearing and sweating, I was able to catch the
> threads of the rod with the nut and slowly screw it on.
> 13. I slowly peeled off the masking tape as I screwed the button in. > Voila!
On both my former '90 Legacy wagon and my current '95 Legacy sedan, I had this problem, and repaired it thus:
- Obtain a yellow wirenut (in the electrical section of hardware store), the kind without "wings". See formatting link. I sayyellow because the colors correspond to standard sizes, in the US. (Ororange? See step #2.)
- Cut off the bottom 25% or so of theyellow wirenut, say, the smooth part at the bottom of the image. (Otherwise, the item will bottom out too soon when deployed.) This is a bit difficult, even with a razor knife. Be careful. (If you instead want to try the next smaller size wirenut (orange), that might work without cutting... I don't know. The larger core of the yellow might be necessary to grip the rod.)
- Use a long-nose pliers to pull the handle's internal rod while pulling up the handle pretty hard, which sets the brake and keeps the rod extended and stationary for the next step.
- If it's not already in there, put the spring back on the rod (I forget whether I needed to add a washer after the spring and before the wirenut), and then screw the wirenut onto the rod. Don't push too hard on the rod while threading the wirenut on. Once the threading is started, you can tighten the wirenut firmly with the longnose pliers, but don't gouge the surface too much, since you will be putting pressure there with your thumb.
Voila #2.
-- Jack Gavin