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Post by Penguin45 on Apr 6, 2016 15:39:43 GMT
And on to the bits the tester commented on. Advisory for headlight reflectors, which was fair enough. Sometimes there's nothing for it and you have to spend the money, so a nice new pair of Wipacs are now fitted.  Bit of a rust breakout on one, and the silver tarnishing badly on the other. Brake pedal decided to behave rather oddly on the drive up to the test. Nice and light at one moment, really heavy the next. Put foot on brake, revs rise. The elbow into the servo had split - with the bonnet open, you could here it hissing. This is a Girling Powerstop IIB, so that's the expensive one. An entire refurb kit is about £130. [yorkshire]'Ow much?!?![/yorkshire]. North West Classics list the seal kit only. A bit of futher poking showed that they'd got the elbow as well - £19.50 with the p+p. Nice to be able to get it on its own, but it's only a 2" rubber hose...... Disconnected hose from the top pipe and forced glue into the split. Left it overnight and this afternoon applied a double dose of self adhesive heat shrink tubing.  Looks tidy enough, no more hissing and a consistent pedal. Just play in the top steering column bush and a burbly exhaust to sort now. Chris. |
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Post by tommydp on Apr 7, 2016 5:52:32 GMT
Well done, Chris!
I'm happy it passed, and that the brake servo was an easy fix! I'll have to put the white car through the test soon, too. I think it will be ok, but you never know:-)
Tommy
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Post by Penguin45 on Apr 8, 2016 23:49:30 GMT
Burbly exhaust sorted. Took the whole lot off in the end. Flange to the manifold was looking rather battered, so took a hammer and dolly to it and evened it out. Couldn't lift it back with the rear section attached, so split the rear off. Plenty of assembly paste and a trolley jack later, I'd got the front end sorted and clamped home. Could I get the back end back on properly? Could I 'eck. Took it over the road to Mark at YEADON TYRES AND EXHAUSTS, where it was sorted in about ten minutes. Top bloke, Mark. And it's very quiet and civillised in the car now. Hope yours goes through, Tommy. I go to the same test station every year with all the family vehicles, so I know the tester quite well. It helps..... Chris. |
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Post by Penguin45 on Apr 10, 2016 19:28:19 GMT
And a little landmark from the weekend's travels:  Chris. |
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Post by Penguin45 on Apr 11, 2016 19:23:33 GMT
Last couple of niggles sorted this afternoon. Drivers window decided it wouldn't go up and down much. Door card off, plenty of PlusGas followed by a liberal slathering of copper slip got that moving again properly. Got an advisory on the MoT for the steering column top bush, so lashed out an entire £2 for a replacement. The Book describes removing and dismantling the entire steering column and using the BMC Special Tool to hoik the old one out. Talking to FourSquare at the weekend suggested an easier way.  Old and new. Basically, you make up a skinny metal hook, bend the locking tab out of the way and go fishing. Half an hour, start to finish, so thank you Mark. Chris. |
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Post by Penguin45 on Apr 16, 2016 23:17:51 GMT
Pride of Longbridge this Saturday gone, so Friday afternoon the indicator switch failed, probably because of replacing the top steering column bush. Wiring problem, so managed to fix it.
The show turned out to be a disaster, so I drove over from Birmingham to Coventry and visited Mark, the owner before me. Spent a very pleasant hour having a chat and a cuppa. Mark took the Red Dog round the block with a huge grin on his face. Sort of thing that makes the work worthwhile.
Chris.
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Post by Penguin45 on Apr 17, 2016 18:36:00 GMT
Having returned to Penguin Towers unexpectedly early yesterday, I decided to get on with repairing the split in the drivers seat side bolster. Quite straightforward - seat out and pop off lots of clips. Gave the base a good scrub with disappointing results. The split was about 8" long and had obviously been there a long time as the vinyl had taken a "set". Drew the edges together with button thread and managed to get them to meet pretty well. A vinyl patch was then glued to the back and left overnight, before back stitching all the way round to make a good solid job of it. I thought it looke pretty horrible, but now that it's back on the seat and tensioned up it looks reasonable.  It is now on the passenger seat, reason being that it can be an inboard bolster, so won't get slid across. The passenger side one is now on the drivers seat. MrsP observed my efforts and having refitted the seats this afternoon, I was then "persuaded" to sew up the eight retaining pouches on the gazebo cover, which got damaged in the storms last autumn.  The first of eight..... Chris. |
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Post by dave1800 on Apr 18, 2016 2:44:23 GMT
Does Mark want it back now? I guess it weighs quite a bit more than when Mark last saw it  David Pride of Longbridge this Saturday gone, so Friday afternoon the indicator switch failed, probably because of replacing the top steering column bush. Wiring problem, so managed to fix it. The show turned out to be a disaster, so I drove over from Birmingham to Coventry and visited Mark, the owner before me. Spent a very pleasant hour having a chat and a cuppa. Mark took the Red Dog round the block with a huge grin on his face. Sort of thing that makes the work worthwhile. Chris. |
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Post by Penguin45 on May 30, 2016 19:42:27 GMT
Further to my previous comment that I'd fixed the servo, it transpires that I haven't. Occasional assistance (becoming ever more occasional....) coupled with a sharp rise in revs when the brake was applied all pointed back at the Girling Powerstop IIB. Annoying, as I rebuilt it at college shortly before the car went back on the road and an expensive failure. Bought a pukka Lockheed (As opposed to a Powertune copy) one on-line very cheaply, complete with bracket. Some careful measuring suggested this could be persuaded to fit.  First, move expansion bottle ann inch to the right.  Make up blanking panel to cover hole left by the Girling bracket.  That goes in there.  A very exact fit. Just got to make a couple of brake pipes and then bleed off the lot. Chris. |
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Post by dave1800 on May 30, 2016 23:59:33 GMT
What a pain. Will you dismantle the Mk11b to find out what went wrong? David Further to my previous comment that I'd fixed the servo, it transpires that I haven't. Chris. |
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Post by indianajones on Jun 1, 2016 22:33:07 GMT
Nice work Chris, I couldn't get the supplied bracket to work with mine (that or I couldn't figure it out lol), hence why I made the one that I did.
-Andrew
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Post by Penguin45 on Jun 1, 2016 23:16:28 GMT
Yes..... Couldn't find the link to your bracket. Would you like to stick it in "Technical" when you get a moment? Anyway, plumbed it all up this afternoon. Brakes are now locked on solid. I suspect that this is down to the master cylinder, which had to be drained to allow new pipework to be fitted. I cracked the front nipples (Ooh err, Mrs) and there was a bit of a squirt of fluid down the tube. This allowed me to get the car out of the garage and put the blue one in. Which was fine until I braked at the kerbside. There are times when I hate cars.  Chris. |
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Post by indianajones on Jun 2, 2016 0:28:09 GMT
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Post by Penguin45 on Jun 12, 2016 22:47:46 GMT
Brake problem now resolved. Snoopy came over this morning and between us we worked out that the servo was indeed the problem. Cracking a caliper nipple simply releases the pressure on the brakes. Having got the brakes locked, releasing a joint between the master cylinder and the servo would show that:
1/ If they release, it's the brake maaster cylinder
2/ If they don't, it's the servo.
We did, they didn't, so servo time. I'm afraid that being in a bit of a rush we didn't get photos, but stripped, cleaned and polished everything and fitted new seals. I am 99% certain that the air valve was the culprit. Anyway, it's all back together and a comprehensive bleeding has yielded an excellent pedal.
And, as fair exchange is no robbery, I spent the afternoon doing a bit of welding on GLE.
Chris.
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Post by Penguin45 on Jun 16, 2016 23:28:17 GMT
And..... epic fail. Due to the technical hitch with Eugenie (I broke the handbrake), this afternoon's little run had to be accomplished with the Red Dog. 7 miles. We exactly made it. That is to say that, after 6 miles, I could feel the brakes starting to drag. Shortly after that came the "hot brakes" smell. As I turned off the main road to our destination, the brakes locked solid. And I DO mean solid. Still, got Ashley to his apponitment and instead of listening to England's skin of the teeth victory over Wales, I stood in the road, directing the traffic around an immovable car in the middle of the road. Everybody was quite nice about it, actually.
Nice man in the big orange tool box turned up just after the brakes cooled down and I was able to move her out of the middle of the road. I have to say, I was very impressed. Andy spent a bit of time tinkering and declared that whilst logically the servo was the chief suspect, it was actually the master cylinder at fault and that driving it back home was not a good plan. Onto the folding trailer/dolly fingy and home we went.
Snoopy is gleefully revelling in my discomfort, but is going to pop round on Sunday for round 2 - rebuild master cylinder and some suspension stuff which I might finally have cracked.
Chris.
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