Bryan,
In my experience, you should NOT flush the brake lines with anything other
than
brake fluid. If there is still too much gunk inside, you might consider new
steel
brake lines. Not as daunting a task as it sounds. There are several options
available to replace them. You can get them bre-bent from Classic Tube, get a
kit
of lines from Moss Motors that you bend into shape by copying the original
lines or
you can buy a flaring tool from MiniMania and Classic tube will sell you any
length
of 1/8th steel tubing and make your own kit.
As to the synthetic brake fluid, if you are using Lockheed RUBBER parts in
your
master cylinder and slave cylinders, you might be experiencing swelling of the
rubber. Synthetic fluid and rubber parts don't seem to mix very well.
If you go back and flush the system out a couple of times with Castrol LMA
Brake Fluid, rebuild the master cylinder and slave cylinders with new rubber
kits
and use the Castrol fluid exclusively, I think your brake problem will be
solved.
Mike MacLean-60 Sprite
Bryan Vandiver wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm just putting the finishing touches on my bugeye restoration project, and
> have run into some issues with the rear brakes, and clutch.
>
> I am using a rebuilt 7/8 inch dual master, that was bead-blasted, and honed. I
> cleaned out all the brake and clutch lines with carb cleaner, and then blew
>them
> out with compressed air. Since I was upgrading to front disk brakes, I thought
> it would be best to upgrade the rear as well, so I pulled the brake backing
> plates off a '78 rb midget (as well as the parking brake linkages), and
> installed a new set of 3/4" brake cylinders. I am using my 'original' bearing
> hubs, and brake drums ( dated 7/58). once I installed everything, and bolted
>on
> the wheels, I noticed a lot of binding on the rear wheels ( in fact, I could
> barely push the car out of the garage). After taking off both drums, they both
> appear to be contacting the later brake backing plates. I compared my early
> brake drums to later ones, and they have the same exact distance from the back
> lip of the drum to the mounting surface. Has anyone done this, or run into
>this
> problem??
>
> As for the clutch...
> This is the 'stiffest' clutch I have experience in any car, is that typical of
> sprites??
> I have a ribcase trans, but the new clutch slave cylinder is the 'early style'
> 7/8" (moss 180-655), to be compatible with my original clutch line and master.
> All other clutch components are '1275 type' including the slave cyl
>'push-rod'.
> The 'new' clutch kit was part# COM710/kit from MiniMania.
> Besides being very tough to bleed, are these clutches really that hard to
> disengage? I can't imaging driving with this in traffic!
>
> BTW - I am using 'sythetic brake fluid' since I am using all new components,
>and
> all lines were'flushed' first.
>
> Regards - Bryan Vandiver (San Jose, CA)
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