Talking to one of our club members attending that day confirmed my diagnosis as he had exactly the same symptoms on his car. The drive home was cautious with as little brake usage as possible & a lot of down shifting. Thankfully, problems just started to occur at the last set of traffic lights before my home. So, it seemed I had a major brake job to complete.
I couldn't remember if the front callipers on this car had been previously reconditioned but checking through my records indicated that I had fitted new disc pads & rear brakes shoes. In fact, I had not done anything major to the brakes since I have had the car. The plan was to have the front callipers reconditioned & the rear cylinders if they needed it.
First job was to position the car safely on blocks & wheel stands so all the wheels could come off.
Next was to bleed the fluid from the front lines & then remove the callipers. No great dramas with this. The bleeder screws undid as usual & because there were no locking caps, the two bolts attaching the calliper were undone easily & the calliper along with the disc pads were removed. A visual inspection of the callipers indicated nothing unusual, so I presumed the internals had problems.
Then to the rear brakes. Again, I bleed the system completely before removing the rear shoes. Then the fun began! Externally, the rear cylinders looked in good nick with no leaks but a closer look behind the rubber boots indicated the brakes lines had not been touched for many years. Undoing the brake lines became a major issue. I am very conscious of breaking these bolts or stripping the bolt head to the extent that a spanner won't fit. The first attempt at undoing the three lines, 2 on the RH & one on the LH, resulted in failure & frustration. The 7/16 spanners I had were not very long so I couldn't get much leverage on these very tight nuts. Frequent squirts of WD40 didn't give immediate assistance.
I even bought a new 7/16 spanner with a long handle but again, no success. In fact the lower nut on the RH side was starting to suffer. After several further attempts on each side, no success. This in a way made me more determined to remove the cylinders as it was obvious they had not had any attention in a very long time.
Enough for the day & time to consult my resident retired mechanic, Kev. Two suggestions - trying tapping around the cylinder with a punch & hammer & secondly, try with a big shifter.
Next day, tap, tap, tap, & squirt, squirt, squirt! I did think very briefly about heating but as the fuel tank was just above the rear brake, I wasn't really wanting an explosion under my house! It was very difficult to land a good hit but I did give some firm taps around the base of the nut. At last, I had some success with the top nut on the RH but the lower nut was proving a problem because the nut was becoming damaged. Then we tried a medium wrench & at last success.
The same technique was used on the LH side & it also became loose.
Next came off the rear brake shoes but the rear cylinders were a bit difficult because of the two steel spring clips holding them in place. The top one gets so far & then is caught on the hand brake mechanism. Again, some squirts of WD40 helped in finally getting them off.
It is really important to label these as the adjusters for the hand brake have different threads - RH thread for R side; LH thread for L side.
I kept all the bits that relate to each side together which makes re-assembly easier.
Next thing at this stage was to give everything (not the callipers) a good clean, using degreaser, scrapers, wire brushes & compressed air. I also gave them a quick coat of black engine enamel to compete the process. It also gave me a chance to spray some fish oil around all the crevices & holes under the car.
Next instalment is about the new parts & assembly.
(Click on the photos to enlarge)
No comments:
Post a Comment