So, in trying to get mine to work properly (they weren't engaging at all...) the caliper end of one of my e-brake cables snapped off as it apparently was rather rusted. I do have a spare from my parts car, but looking at the routing it looks to be a BITCH to get to everything to pull out the old one and put the 'new' one in- and honestly though I've checked that the cable on the one from the parts car is good at the calipers, the plastic covering on the front part of it is broken at several points and the cable is slightly rusted.

I've looked at Mazdatrix and they don't seem to have anything related to the e-brake cables. I've not dug through the parts manual to find see if I can find the number and order a new one from Mazda yet- has anyone else done this with any success? Though I don't really want to be spending more money, I'd feel a bit more secure with a new, un-rusted cable.

Does anyone who has replaced the cable have any suggestions for making it easier? It unfortunately looks like you have to pull the exhaust and driveshaft for certain, and that pulling the rear gearbox would make things a lot easier. I really have NO desire to pull the gearbox though- is it possible to replace the cabling without pulling it?

Thanks!

 

It can certainly be done without pulling anything (not even the exhaust). However, I did it on a lift, it might be easier to drop at least the exhaust if you're doing it on jackstands.

I bought my cables from Black Dragon Automotive. A little on the expensive side, but the cables will probably last longer than the car . There's a page in the FSM that lays out the procedure pretty well, I don't remember exactly where, but it's in there.

 

I can see how having it on a lift would make things easier... I'm just not seeing how I'll be able to get the clips off that hold the back two cables through their bulkhead without removing stuff. Actually, I think if I can shimmy the heat shield out from under the exhaust that would help a lot for the forward stuff.

It looks like all three cables come to $100 from Black Dragon- that's actually about what I'd figure it would cost from Mazda themselves from what I've seen in the past. I'll have to dig through the FSM and find the procedure- I'm pretty sure I could figure it out, but having the real ones won't hurt. Though I doubt that the FSM instructions cover dealing with the guide brackets being more rust than metal... -_-;;

 

So I finally had both decent enough weather and sufficient time (getting both of those at the same time has been really hard since the FC is sitting in the driveway thanks to having the D back and working feverishly to try and get it streetable for DCS in a month and a half...) to attack the e-brake cable replacement job.

Half a day, lots of swearing, surprisingly few scrapes and bruises, and countless statements of, "I need a bloody lift...", it's finally done. That system was NOT designed to be worked on or replaced on jack stands with the exhaust & driveshaft still in place. I'm still amazed that I managed to both remove the clips that hold the rear cables in place AND put them back on. But, for the first time since I've owned the car (I discovered that the driver's side cable was essentially rusted solid...), the parking brake on both sides works properly.

Now I can really work on getting it started after the rebuild in earnest- it was hard to try too hard when I knew I couldn't drive it anywhere with the e-brake shot...