I'm going to attempt to put this e-brake handle out of my '92 back together and i can't figure out how this all worked before it failed.

Like many of these, the button popped off at some point and the button return spring was lost. The question I have, what captures the push rod and what maintains spring pressure on the pawl?

 

So I figured it. The metal bar itself appears to have been bent out of shape at some point in it's life. I ended up heating it to cherry red and bending it around a piece of stock I had then testing it against the pawl. This went on a few times until I was satisfied with the action. After that I cleaned the barbed end of rust, found a spring that would work in place of the OEM one which is long gone and and then used a steel wire heated up, I melted a small groove inside the button, filled it with JB weld quick and reassembled everything. The epoxy has setup and it's been re-installed. Figuring this out was driving me crazy as I couldn't see how the rod was locked it and used a single spring to actuate the pawl.

For anyone that finds this post in the future, I hope you find it useful.