Redonned my not so pristine bunny suit and went back to work on the rear brakes. Pulled the driver's drum, swapped out the existing anchor pins for a pair of new ones, and then put a preliminary adjustment on the star wheel to bring the shoes out and get them set into position. Drum sounded about right during the test spin so moved over the passenger's side and set those shoes up as well. On to the bleeders.
Took an offset scribe to the pocket around the driver's wheel cylinder bleeder screw and dug out as much of the crud and rusticles as were willing to be evicted. Multiple sockets later I quit trying to find one that would fit the screw and move over to the passenger side. Did the shoe set up and actually had better luck there with the screw. Cleaned out the pocket as before and, after going to the extreme of miking sockets to see what would fit, I finally discovered that the bleeder screw was NOT metric. Oddly enough it turned out to be a 5/16ths hex. Set a 1/4 drive 5/16ths 6 point deep socket down on the screw and plugged a 1/4 drive power bar into that. BADDA BING-BADDA BOOM, with just a gentle amount of firm encouragement the bleeder screw started to unscrew! Rock and rolled the screw back and forth a few times to get it used to the idea of moving freely; and then screwed it back into the cylinder port. Same-same for the driver's side.
For the curious who may be about to wonder WHY?? Leaving the screws all the way in their ports but not firmly in place lets me take an air gun and high pressure to the backing plate of the brake assembly without worrying that crap could infiltrate the port and contaminate the cylinder. Once I sure of how clean the site is, then I can swap out the old screws for the news ones that I will be picking up.
The only cost to the whole exercise was the whack in the head that I took from the quarter panel as I was trying to encourage the driver's screw to imitate the passengers screw and be a good little screw and come out politely. Sorry, gents, no blood, no gore. Threw a small amount of Aspercreme with lidocaine at the contact site and dropped a Tylenol for good measure. it will probably be tender tomorrow but my skull skin is a roadmap of hits and misses from past encounters of the metallic kind so just another incident to add to the box score.
The plan now is to go ahead and swap out those last two brake lines that still remain on the differential and replace them with A-N fittings and Stainless hard line. Although they show no immediate or physical evidence of weakness or pending failure, they are the weak link as all the rest of the plumbing in the entire system is A-N Stainless. As for the proportioning valve and master cylinder, they are still factory original but i do happen to have a replacement master cylinder sitting on the bench, still in its box, jic.
And no, no pictures of any of this. Nothing to see here folks; awll right now, move along, move along, no loitering sez I. Seriously though, me posting pictures of me wrestling with recalcitrant fittings and rusty tubing is not an Academy nominated event, no how no way, uh-uh. Not about to do this twice; once for the camera and then have to do it again for permanent. This isn't reality?? TV and I am not the latest on screen one day wonder-spurt
Nick
Took an offset scribe to the pocket around the driver's wheel cylinder bleeder screw and dug out as much of the crud and rusticles as were willing to be evicted. Multiple sockets later I quit trying to find one that would fit the screw and move over to the passenger side. Did the shoe set up and actually had better luck there with the screw. Cleaned out the pocket as before and, after going to the extreme of miking sockets to see what would fit, I finally discovered that the bleeder screw was NOT metric. Oddly enough it turned out to be a 5/16ths hex. Set a 1/4 drive 5/16ths 6 point deep socket down on the screw and plugged a 1/4 drive power bar into that. BADDA BING-BADDA BOOM, with just a gentle amount of firm encouragement the bleeder screw started to unscrew! Rock and rolled the screw back and forth a few times to get it used to the idea of moving freely; and then screwed it back into the cylinder port. Same-same for the driver's side.
For the curious who may be about to wonder WHY?? Leaving the screws all the way in their ports but not firmly in place lets me take an air gun and high pressure to the backing plate of the brake assembly without worrying that crap could infiltrate the port and contaminate the cylinder. Once I sure of how clean the site is, then I can swap out the old screws for the news ones that I will be picking up.
The only cost to the whole exercise was the whack in the head that I took from the quarter panel as I was trying to encourage the driver's screw to imitate the passengers screw and be a good little screw and come out politely. Sorry, gents, no blood, no gore. Threw a small amount of Aspercreme with lidocaine at the contact site and dropped a Tylenol for good measure. it will probably be tender tomorrow but my skull skin is a roadmap of hits and misses from past encounters of the metallic kind so just another incident to add to the box score.
The plan now is to go ahead and swap out those last two brake lines that still remain on the differential and replace them with A-N fittings and Stainless hard line. Although they show no immediate or physical evidence of weakness or pending failure, they are the weak link as all the rest of the plumbing in the entire system is A-N Stainless. As for the proportioning valve and master cylinder, they are still factory original but i do happen to have a replacement master cylinder sitting on the bench, still in its box, jic.
And no, no pictures of any of this. Nothing to see here folks; awll right now, move along, move along, no loitering sez I. Seriously though, me posting pictures of me wrestling with recalcitrant fittings and rusty tubing is not an Academy nominated event, no how no way, uh-uh. Not about to do this twice; once for the camera and then have to do it again for permanent. This isn't reality?? TV and I am not the latest on screen one day wonder-spurt
Nick
