After sitting for years, the emergency brake cables in a '64 Valiant are rusted solid in the cable housings, and won't break loose. Has anyone had any experience with this problem? I welcome suggestions on how to "unfreeze" them.

what have you tried?

I was lucky on my 62 valiant-- they were stuck at first--- soaked them with pb blaster, then tapped them with a small hammer---worked from then on.

I also made sure to use them to keep them unstuck.

You might have to disassemble your rear brakes & see how they look from inside the drum, Lawrence

I would have to remove the cables from the car, mount them in a vise on the bench and spray to soaking with kroil. Then grab one end or the other with vise grips going back and forth until it got loose. Clean it up, lubricate the cable inside and reassemble. Repeat next year. Eventually I got tired of that and replaced all the cables.

Unfreezing them is unlikely -- better to replace them with new ones. They're still listed on rockauto.com , at low enough prices to make it not very worthwhile messing with the corroded old ones. I have heard of people taking new cables to a marine/ship supply store and having them "re-cabled" with stainless steel marine-grade cable, which would be a permanent never-have-to-think-about-them-again upgrade. Or it looks like you can get premium all-stainless ones from Inline Tube.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Don’t even waste a second trying to resurrect corroded parking brake cables, it is a fool’s errand. Been there, done that, done that, done that, done that... think Groundhog’s Day flick here. Having live in the land of salted winter roads, 40 year old OEM cables were not protected from the elements. I recall replacing brake cables on my than four year old 67 Dart, and other cars until manufactures started shielding cables with plastic sealing out moisture.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

they're like $10 on rockauto. replace it.

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'73 Scamp (the girlfriend): 225ci super/6 2BBL conversion (Almost done!)
'90 Subaru, wagon (the wife): H4-cyl 2.2L

1977 Mercedes-Benz 300D, 5cyl diesel(For sale!)

Thanks a million for the great suggestions, guys! I will do as advised and replace those suckers. Stu