Thread: What have I done! IIa sitting out front.

Well Operation Gauge has been put on hold as several other things have come to light.

I've finally got the gauges fitted




But they need connecting up.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that the gauges have swapped places, I couldn't get the vacuum gauge in against the steering plate. Even with the gauges swapped it was a very tight squeeze, but it allowed me to straighten the sawn edge and level the oil gauge which was in slightly tilted so the Smiths name wasn't quite horizontal which would have bugged me.

First issue that has delayed Operation Gauge was oil dripping from the bellhousing!!! At first I thought the dreaded main seal, but the smell was all wrong and the oil was clean, so it had to be coming from the gearbox.
Opening the filler plug the oil level was high again and the transfer low.
My options are - open the box and prevent the bearing that is rotating from doing so with a bit of bearing fit, or join the 2 filler plugs with a bit of pipe.

Being the slacker that I am ( and not having anywhere near the time to strip a gearbox) option B was implemented
2 1/2" BSP to 1/2" barb brass fittings were purchased along with a length of fuel hose.

At transfer


At gearbox


You can see the hose is pretty close to the exhaust, so I made a small heat shield


It makes a small difference enough to keep the hose temp under 100deg (the exhaust is about 145 at that point, but I've only run it for small distances at the moment. I'll either try and get a 90deg BSP/barb fitting or sleeve the fuel pipe with a small section of silicone hose.
Anyway no more leaks from the bellhousing
So far

Anyway rego is coming up so its time to tackle the leaky sump, but on Bill's last voyage prior to draining the oil I came to a halt, felt a small pop/thump through the pedal, and the brakes stayed on. Couldn't drive forward. I reversed out of the way, got out the jack and raise the front wheels one at a time, both turned no problems.
I had the dog with me and some frozen food in the tray so I decided to make a dash for it with binding brakes as it was only a km or so home.
Start back up and drove off only to have the brakes work perfectly!!!

So thats got me worried, I don't like intermittent problems esp of the braking kind, so I'll give the brakes an overhaul.
I've ordered new pistons, pads and springs, the booster is new, maybe I should get a master as well??

Anyone got any ideas what might have caused the braking issue? Or how to test for a faulty master?

Most likely cause for the sticking brakes is a sticking master cylinder. This is likely to be due to a corroded bore or swollen cups. Reversing will have freed to shoes and given a little extra back pressure in the line to free the master cylinder. (There are other possibilities, including a similarly sticking wheel cylinder, or oil on a brake shoe)

John

Thanks John, I think the MC is the only thing that hasn't been touched in the last few years - the brakes were rebuilt at the wheels just before I bought it, so it seems a logical place to start.

Is it worth going for a TRW/Lucas MC over a Bearmach one? Happy to pay the extra for better quality, but would be peeved if its only a bit of badge engineering out of the same factory.

Originally Posted by Ozdunc

......
Is it worth going for a TRW/Lucas MC over a Bearmach one? Happy to pay the extra for better quality, but would be peeved if its only a bit of badge engineering out of the same factory.

For what it is worth, what I did last time I had to replace a brake master cylinder on my 2a was to get the old one stainless steel sleeved and overhauled. Haven't installed it yet as the temporary one is still going.

John

Been meaning to write this down for a while so this might be a long one

Back at the beginning of April, my leaky sump became too much for my OCD, so it was time for a oil change and a new gasket.
I got a Payen gasket which is still paper but about 1mm thick instead of the standard thin one.
Drained the oil out, no bits (yay!), cleaned the old gasket off the sump and gave it a clean up



Dropping a straight edge over the sump and the engine facing showed no noticeable warping.

I then decided to make the gasket leakproof with 4 coatings of Hydromar Blue. one on the sump on on either side of the gasket and one on the engine mating surface.
So far this had taken about 20mins to do once the oil was out.

Then came the mission - refitting the sump! What a bloody palaver that was. Dunno why, but trying to support the sump whilst feeding bolts through the pan and into the block whilst not disturbing the gasket took me nearly 3hours and almost drove my wife to distraction with all the swearing coming from under the car

And it still leaks.

Under the engine looking up



There Bill sat for a week or so until I could face doing some more. Changing the filter made me pull my finger out on completing the gauges as I need to plumb in the oil pressure hose to the pressure switch outlet




If you look carefully you can see the hose exiting from the middle of the brass adapter.

I drilled out an existing hole in the firewall to 1/2" and fed the oil pressure pie, vacuum gauge pipe, plus tacho feed through.



Here is the birds nest of wiring and piping to run a pressure gauge, vacuum gauge, voltmeter and tacho. It doesnt look this bad really, I stuck the camera up behind the guages.



As you can see I had a slight weeping of the oil piping, but nipping up the brass joiners sorted that

Then it was on to the brakes.

I decided to go for a new MC.

This was nice and easy to fit and didn't need the pedal removing



Ignore the slight fluid where the hose fits in, the photo was taken just after fitting.
Having the remote booster made bleeding very simple, as I only had to bleed as far as the nipple on that, rather than all 4 wheels. Which was great as it was only a couple of months since I'd replaced all the fluid.

I'm still having some intermittent pressure coming back through the brake pedal, which I think is vacuum related, but to be sure I removed all the drums to look at the condition of the pads and the wheel cylinders.
Pads and WCs were great but the drums are quite badly scored, so I'll be getting new ones all round.

But current set up is good enough to pass rego with flying colours once again

I've also investigated the pedal pressure and I think it was a slight leak on the hose from the booster to the manifold, possible where I tee'd into it for the vacuum gauge feed.
All seems to working fine now and the booster passes all the integrity tests, so hopefully I'm done until the drums arrive.

Originally Posted by Ozdunc

Here is the birds nest of wiring and piping to run a pressure gauge, vacuum gauge, voltmeter and tacho. It doesnt look this bad really, I stuck the camera up behind the guages.

I'm going to call you on this. Where is the 'bird's nest' and what is there to feel embarrassed about? Mate, if I can get my wiring that neat, I'd be ecstatic.

As for the leaky sump, you might be facing issues around the sump holes themselves from some gorilla who's overtightened things. As for your dramas getting it back on, simply applying any sort of goop automatically makes things a billion times harder to put back together - it's a subset of Sod's Law and has no rational reason (see my signature).

Bird's Nest?????

you're joking aren't you?