I'm really close to getting my 1973 Midget on the road. The only things left
are the brake master cylinder and the fuel lines. On the brakes, the PO has
struck again.
It turns out that he lost the rear brake shoes and return springs, and that
he !threw away! one of the wedges which allow adjustment of the rear shoes.
He didn't know what it was for, so he tossed it!
Now I've disassembled the brake master cylinder. I did so because I wasn't
getting any fluid flow to the rear brakes. Everything came apart OK, but
what I found was amazing! Yup, you guessed it, the PO had been there before
me.
A Lockheed brake MC has two pistons, one which services the lines to the rear
brakes and one which services the lines to the front brakes. There's only one
pushrod, so one piston is in front of the other in the same bore, and there is
supposed to be a pin (rod?) connecting the two, with a spring in between.
spring --
____________ | ____________
| |^^^^^^| |
| Piston #2 -------- Piston #1 |
| -------- |
|____________|^^^|^^|____________|
|
rod -----
On my car, though, the PO apparently lost the connecting pin. That pin is held
in place by tiny roll pins, so the PO just used a cotter pin wrapped around the
two roll pins. Apparently it worked for a while, but when it broke it became
entangled in the spring. I'm just extremely lucky that it didn't score the
bore when it broke.
So, I now have a problem. I can fabricate a new pin, but I don't know how long
it should be. That is, I don't know how much distance should separate the two
pistons. Victoris British only lists an entire MC and a seal kit. I don't
have another MC to disassemble, so I'm probably going to have to make a
semi-educated guess. I on't suppose someone happens to have a Lockheed dual
MC open right now? I thought not.
Ken
--
1990 Corrado If it can't kill ya' Ken Neff
1988 Hawk GT (racebike) it ain't a sport Tivoli Systems, Inc.
1975 Ducati 750GT - unknown kneff@tivoli.com
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