Subaru Parking Brake Button Repair
Al
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!
Good luck.
Al
--
There's never enough time to do it right the first time.......
Jack Gavin
On both my former '90 Legacy wagon and my current '95 Legacy sedan, I had
this problem, and repaired it thus:
1. Obtain a yellow wirenut (in the electrical section of hardware store),
the kind without "wings". See
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=WN-4 . I say
yellow because the colors correspond to standard sizes, in the US. (Or
orange? See step #2.)
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.)
3. 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.
4. 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
Jack Gavin
With slight revisions...
> On both my former '90 Legacy wagon and my current '95 Legacy sedan, I
> had this problem, and repaired it thus:
0. Don't lose the spring.
> 1. Obtain a yellow wirenut (in the electrical section of hardware
> store), the kind without "wings". See
> http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=WN-4 . I say
> yellow because the colors correspond to standard sizes, in the US.
> (Or orange? See step #2.)
>
> 2. Cut off the bottom 25% or so of the yellow 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.)
>
> 3. 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 2 steps.
3.5. I forgot to mention that you may need to use the longnose pliers to
unscrew the remains of the old button from the rod.
> 4. If it's not already (still) in there, put the spring back on the rod
