Hi Ron,
I look forward to your pictures for my round-tail website. Man, putting
that site together was FUN! I'm getting more great pictures all the time to
share with everyone.
I bled my brakes today with denatured alcohol and used almost the entire can
of the stuff. It was obvious that these brakes haven't been bled in a long,
LONG time. The rear bleeder valves were a real bear to get off and will
need to be replaced. I ended up having to take a set of needle-nosed vice
grips to them to get 'em off.
I'll post the rest of the details on my projects page later this evening.
My hope is to make things easier for other neophytes like MYSELF so that
when they come up against these issues, they'll be able to save themselves
some TIME.
The vacuum bleeder sounds like a great idea. I had tried to save a few
bucks by buying one of those one-way valve hoses that drop in a glass jar or
whatever, and it's going back to Kragen for a refund. The damn thing leaked
where it wasn't supposed to and basically fell apart. Just using the rubber
hose by itself worked best.
Best to all.
Jeff in San Diego with very VERY dirty hands.
http://www.ohms.com/spitfire/spitfire.shtml
----- Original Message -----
From: Ron St. John <st-john@mediaone.net>
To: Spitfire Discussion Group <spitfires@autox.team.net>
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2000 2:13 PM
Subject: Jeff's brakes
>
> Jeff:
>
> My car spent nine years on blocks in the garage and the discs probably
> looked worse than yours (although its tough to say without actually
> seeing them). I thought I'd need to have them honed. However, I
> thought that I really had nothing to lose by sanding them first (you
> don't want to have them honed unless you have to because they can only
> be worked so many times). I rebuilt the entire brake system and pulled
> the disks to clean and repack the bearings. While I had the disks off,
> I thoroughly hand sanded the disks and rear brake drums with fine grit
> emory paper (like my Keneth Ball Workshop Manual suggested) until they
> were shiny smooth. The most important part is next. Use a good solvent
> (Ball suggested trichloroethene but that's a little hard to find these
> days) and thoroughly clean the disks, drums, shoes and pads so that
> there is no oil on any of the parts from your hands. I used acetone
> but, MEK, MIBK, 111-trichloroethane, methylene chloride or any other
> chlorinated solvent would work well. Don't use a petroleum based
> solvent like mineral spirits. I knew after completing the sanding and
> cleaning that the brakes were going to work great before even putting
> them back on the car.
>
> My master cylinder and brake lines sat for days after emptying and
> blowing them out with compressed air before I began refilling with DOT
> 5. During the system refill with the DOT 5 I used one of these vacuum
> bleeders rather than the pump method. I would highly recommend buying a
> vacuum bleeder. It makes it a one man job, you will waste less fluid (I
> spent $30 for a quart of DOT 5 at Car Quest and used approximately 3/4
> of it), and you will get a superior bleed job. Another great thing
> about the vacuum bleeder is that it has an opaque fluid collection
> reservoir that the bled fluid comes in to. As a result, one observation
> that is readily apparent is that DOT 5 has a much lower specific gravity
> than the old paint eating crap that is in your system currently. The
> globules of old fluid sink like a brick through the DOT 5 bled fluid and
> settle in the bottom of the reservoir. Essentially, I kept bleeding
> until I wasn't getting any more old brake fluid coming through. In all
> I probably got about 1/2 teaspoon of old fluid come through the entire
> bleed. After I got the car back on the street the brakes worked better
> than any time during my ownership (1975).
>
> My 70 Mk III is the shop getting its new paint job. I saw it this
> morning with all the paint off and down to bare steel. Only one
> surprise. Apparently before I bought it in 1975 the PO took one in the
> passenger rear. It'll be easy to fix though. However, lots of new seals
> and gaskets to buy. I'll being making our friendly suppliers very happy
> soon. All the work I did back in 1980 is in good shape though. When
> its done I'll send you a picture for the round-tail web site.
>
> Ron St. John
>
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