Brake o/h kit

[ahebron]

Today the parts arrived from Canleys to rebuild the Vitesse 6 front and rear brake cylinders.
Seal kits for the master and calipers and complete new cylinders for the rears.

Considering all that is going on in the world at present I reckon 2 weeks Royal Mail to me in NZ is pretty good.

[dougbgt6]

And Canley probably got them from China. Makes you think!

Doug

[ahebron]

No need to think
I just read the country of origin on the packaging and unless China has become part ot of the EU or taken over Italy and the UK I can tell you that they do not appear to be made in China.

[Chris A]

2 hours ago, ahebron said:

Considering all that is going on in the world at present I reckon 2 weeks Royal Mail to me in NZ is pretty good.

Very good delivery time. Normally it is 7 to 10 days to France, but since "The Virus" :-

It has taken 4 weeks for some embroidery threads to arrive in France from the UK. Not for me but for Madame.

I'm still waiting for a small pack posted 29th March.

[Colin Lindsay]

I've been waiting since mid-March for woodstain, but the supplier claims they are having trouble sourcing it, despite having marked it as 'despatched' on March 24th.

An order I placed with a supplier on Monday has not yet arrived, but James Paddock can still do it in less than 24 hours.

[NonMember]

Most of what I've ordered has been as quick as normal, but some of SWMBO's stuff has been slow.

The only really serious issue we had was trying to send a letter to the passport office, in Belfast. Royal Mail first class... just vanished. Royal Mail special delivery got to Belfast DO, who decided (within three minutes of logging its entry to the DO) that there was nobody at the destination address. I'm impressed with the speed of the postie who picked up his load, drove from the DO to the passport office, knocked, waited and confirmed nobody was there all within three minutes! Mind you, if he will try to deliver to a business address at 7am it's not that surprising nobody was at work yet. Just as a reference point, the passport office themselves say they are working and the office is staffed.

[ahebron]

Pre the current issues it was often quicker to get stuff ex UK than from Auckland which is 650km north but on the same island.

[ahebron]

Isnt it an unwritten rule that the simplest jobs can turn into a bit more then anticipated.
I decided to start with the drum slave cylinders as these would be easy to do, not quite.
On the left side the handbrake lever pin fell out as the hole was way over sized. I thought about turning a stepped pin with an oversized centre section that I could knurl before pressing it into the arm but that was too complicated. I decided to braze the pin into the arm with my acetylene bottle reading critically low level I got the job done and then cleaned up the brazing to allow it to work as it should.

Right side was a simple swap out job.

With time on my side the left front caliper was next. Once I got the pistons out I noticed a geasy sludge in the bottom of the cylinders and in the main feed from the flexible hose. This was cleaned up with an hour in the ultrasonic cleaner, a pipe cleaner and a paint brush. Dried it all off and sprayed with CRC to stop it rusting overnight. It will be interesting to see what is in the right side caliper.

 

 

 

[Colin Lindsay]

That's always the way, but at least now you know it's been done properly and no worries about finding any other horrors. Things like that always happen on a tight deadline or when the shops are closed.

[ahebron]

Today was interesting. I spent a large part of it wrestling with the dust seals on the caliper pistons buit am pretty sure I won that battle. I found it easiest to fit the seal on the piton first then slide the piston into the cylinder stiil it stops. Then with dextrous fingers and using a blunt small hook I fed the seal for the housing over the lip trying to keep it in place with my fingers. I dont think the swearing was that bad. Fitting the calipers bought up an interesting problem. They had been powdercoated many many years ago as had the mounting brackets which added together meant the outer pad was forced onto the outside of the disc. Out with the chisel and remove the powder coating from the surfaces and all good. I also had to file the sides of the pads as they are too big to fit, I think they are a Ford pad originally.

I was reasonably happy with that work so I removed the master cylinder and dropped into the ultrasonic cleaner which is my go to tool for cleaning car parts these days. Oddly the supplied parts did not fit so I checked all the part numbers and they should have. But at closer inspection the original seals are still in almost new condition so I must have rebuilt it in the past. Put it back together and all good or so I would have thought, the piston was not returning down the bore even with rubber lube. I found a replacement seal and fitted it but still not returning smoothly. At that point I realised I had it all wrong and didnt notice. The master cylinder was a 0.7 bore not a .625 and it was a 90 degree reservoir not an angled one. My bad and a couple of hours wasted. Into the spares dept and pull out the box of master cylinders and find I have 3 x .625 so I can salvage some bits and make a couple of working master cylinders for the brake and clutch.

That will be tomorrows work😁
And a positive is I am getting more work done on the car than I have in the last 37 years!

 

[Pete Lewis]

Keep going I reckon we will soon hear it running 

Pete

[ahebron]

Got the correct size master cylinder rebuilt using the best of the parts I had, ended up using a PBR cylinder made in Australia but all the same sizes. They have nice black plastic caps that are stronger than the aluminium ones on the Girlings. Photo attached.
Put some fluid in and bled the rear brakes using ther mityvac but the front calipers were not cooperating.
Go and have lunch and a cuppa then back into the garage.

I noticed a nice puddle of expensive silicone brake fluid on the floor just under the front floorpan which meant I hadnt tightened the coupling under the car, luckily I bought two bottles of fluid. Coupling nicely tightened but front calipers still not bleeding so I removed the hoses and miyvac-ed the fluid through but it still would not bleed the caliper so I removed the nipple front right and with a length of 4x2 I pressed the pedal a few times resulting in a nice jet of fluid across the car. Time to go back to old school brake bleeding methods and I got Rhyna involved doing the pump 3 times the open and close. This worked finally.

Next was the clutch master and slave which went well again using old school methods. But I wondering have I got the correct master/slave combination for the 2 litre clutch I am running in the Dolomite 3 rail O/D box. Master is a .625 and I will have to measure the slave tomorrow.

Progressing well with the work tomorrow is take the steering rack apart day.

 

[NonMember]

I believe the standard 2L (Vitesse) clutch uses a 5/8" master and a 1" slave. However, I've found that mine feels more definite with a 7/8" slave. The 1" just seemed a little marginal on whether it really fully disengaged. Possibly I'm compensating for some wear in the mechanical arrangement but I couldn't see anything obvious.