Parking Brake & Shifter Work
Got the parking brake hooked up. I ran the lines when I swapped the rear subframe + suspension, but it wasn’t mission-critical to getting the car back on the road, so I hadn’t actually connected the handle until now.
Naturally, the swivel bracket that connects the handle cable to the two individual brake cables was completely rusted and seized:
I cut the cables during the suspension swap to be able to remove the old ones.
Swapped over Megumi’s non-seized assembly, and POR-15’d the rusty parts for good measure:
Lubed everything up, and it works a treat.
I also swapped over Megumi’s bronze shifter bushings. That was a fight. They did not want to come out, and there was much hammering, clamping and some reaming.
I swapped over Megumi’s shift rod, since one of the joints of Kurumi’s (arrow below) was totally seized:
Finally got everything in, and there is NO slop in the shifter whatsoever. Tight as a drum.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I de-DRL’d the car by pulling the DRL relay in the fuse block under the hood. DRLs were mandated in Canada, so my Canadian-market car had them activated by default. I prefer to have control over whether or not the headlights are illuminated, though.