Squire's voitures

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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by The Reverend Bluejeans »

Sadly that's scrap. The cost of putting that right...........pity.
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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by fried onions »

Right comrades, time for an update. I've been extremely busy on the cars and in other spheres of my life recently so couldn't be bothered updating. The Minor was meant to be going in for major body repairs on Saturday. An unfortunate chain of events prevented this, so it's going on Tuesday instead. What happened, I relate thus.

If you recall, I'd had a lot of trouble with bonded brake linings and lost all faith in them when two came off the shoes and jammed the brake on, also deeply scoring the drum. I had one bonded shoe left to replace with a riveted one, which I set about doing last week. As the wheel cylinders can expand without the shoes and springs holding them, one did just that, but didn't pop out completely. I just pushed it back in and substituted the shoe for a riveted one, so I had riveted linings all round. Journeying into work later I felt the pedal slowly sinking to the floor if I sat on the brakes. This got steadily worse until I was left with practically no brakes at all. I examined the system and saw that the brake I'd been working on was pissing out brake fluid all over the tyre and everything. My heart sank and I feared that the aforementioned wheel cylinder had become faulty and that was another set of riveted linings - which are bloody hard to find now - were contaminated. I left the car for a few days, disgusted.

I had to do something about it as the Saturday deadline was fast approaching and I had other preparation jobs to do on the car. So off came the drum, and wonder of wonders, everything was bone dry and fine. I turned my attention to the backplate and there I found the connecting pipe between the two cylinders was leaking at the wheel cylinder union. I checked it for tightness and that was fine, so I removed it and quickly saw the copper pipe was fractured. I bent the remains off by hand.
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Heartened by this easy fix (just get a replacement pipe from the scrapper), I began to undo the other union, which was quite stuck. A few taps on the spanner with my hand and it gave way a bit too eagerly.

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Oh. Fuck.

Yes, that's a brass union, the remainder of which was still inside the wheel cylinder, a genuine old Lockheed one I'd gone to great lengths to source. Whoever overhauled the brakes last time using modern pattern part wheel cylinders also fitted these replacement copper brake pipes. I'd given them no thought when I replaced the wheel cylinders as copper tubing is what I've used in the past too.
I borrowed a left-hand threaded extractor from my mate with a view to drilling the brass and getting it out, saving the pretty much new wheel cylinder. The extractor then snapped. No amount of drilling would make a mark on that toughened steel. I refitted the road wheel and went back indoors.

Fortunately, a Right Hand Lockheed wheel cylinder came up on eBay. Today I set to work trying to sort out this mess and praying to God that nothing else would go wrong. With the proper Bundy tubing pipe from the scrapper, the other pipe from which will be retained for fitting to the nearside at a later time, I repaired it all and bled the bleeder, whereupon all seemed fine. Touching the considerable acreage of wood in front of me, I uttered subdued optimistic words.

I just had to take the two remaining van wheels off the rear and swap with the standard wheels, so I can get all the van wheels refurbished for when the car comes back to me. One wheel swapped OK, did the other side and noticed one wheel nut wasn't getting any tighter.

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Oh. Fuck.

That's another trip to the scrapper then, which has quickly proved itself a wise buy. I ventured onto the road, the brakes are working fine and stop the car straight with a firm pedal.

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Just got to monitor for brake fluid leaks now but it should be fine. Take one last look at it - when it emerges it will be transformed. I'm very much looking forward to that, and I did enjoy the drive out today, but will be glad to be without the cantankerous little car for a few months.
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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by Hooli »

Sounds like a frustrating day that!

On the subject of contaminated linings, I've heard, seen & tried with some success covering them in petrol & lighting it. The fluid burns off with the heat of the fire, might need a couple of goes if lots soaked in.
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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by fried onions »

It was a frustrating week mate. Agreed about de-contaminating the linings though - still got to do that with the oil soaked rears, although I'll try without fire. And in several months' time.
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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by mercrocker »

Chin up, Squire, hopefully he'll be back soon all looking splendid. I do sometimes feel that Minors don't like the thought of body repairs - a bit like a kid that won't go to the dentist. My brakes have been a disaster area since I had a new rear wing and associated repairs done - to the extent that the car has been sulking since lockdown and confined to the barn.

I am missing it though so shall have to give it another chance soon.....
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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by fried onions »

I've given you a sympathy 'like'.

When I came across this little book, I thought "yep, I'll be needing to do plenty of those".

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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by fried onions »

Few more photies I found of the offending pipe cunt.

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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by Hooli »

fried onions wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 9:04 pm It was a frustrating week mate. Agreed about de-contaminating the linings though - still got to do that with the oil soaked rears, although I'll try without fire. And in several months' time.
I think the theory is the fire boils the fluid out of the shoe.
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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by Scruffy Bodger »

Hooli wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 8:58 pm Sounds like a frustrating day that!

On the subject of contaminated linings, I've heard, seen & tried with some success covering them in petrol & lighting it. The fluid burns off with the heat of the fire, might need a couple of goes if lots soaked in.
Just use a hot air gun to de-contaminate them. Just don't get too aggressive with it and you'll see the fluid bubbling out the lining. My mate overdid it the one day on a glued on liner and melted the glue and it fell off :lol:
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Re: Squire's voitures

Post by Drum »

Bad luck with that broken brake union Squire.

Regarding contaminated brake shoes, my 109 went through a couple of brake cylinders, each time leaving a mess of fluid on the shoes and drums.

Once repaired and cleaned up with Gunk, it didn't take long to burn the brake fluid off by braking a few times on a careful test drive.
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