Anyone replaced parking brake cables?

[P. Kennedy]

The old ones came out with relative ease, just grabbed them with vise grips, twisted and pulled from underneath the petrol tank.

But now that I have new cables in hand, there appears to be no way to get the crimped-on fittings at either end to even come CLOSE to fitting through the tubes / openings they came out of.

Any insight from experienced humanoids?

Thanks.

[P. Kennedy]

...turns out the rusted in ends of the old cables were still attached to the tubes.  Drilled them suckers out and greased the new cables right in.  Project is proceeding at a rapid pace now that WI weather is getting fair.