Thread: Meet Vincent the Stage 1 v8!

There is an issue there somewhere. I cannot get any flow to the wheel cylinders. I recon there is a blockage in the pdwa valve or master cylinder itself. I'll start with taking off the pdwa valve and checking the seals and blowing out all of the brake lines to confirm they are clear. Then it will be isolated to the master cylinder. Grrrrr

My starting issue turns out was the small tube that I cut off from the upper lubricant bottle and left open was stuffing up the mixture into the carby. Now it is blocked off it starts and idles like a baby :-).

It drives again! FINALLY, it is all back together again and a moving beast.



I spent ages sorting out the brakes. It turns out the flexible brake hose to the rear axle was blocked, which explained the brake warning light that would occasionally come on when driving it before it's refit. It also meant that all braking was being done by the front axle. Once I replaced the hose there was no way I could bleed up a firm brake pedal. I tried vacuum bleeding, reverse pressure bleeding and disassembled the fail switch countless times to reset the piston. After a fair bit of head scratching I went back to basics and adjusted up the rear shoes to find that the adjuster snail on one side was slipping on the shaft, and was missing the brake shoe on the other.... A dob of weld fixed one side and reversing the shoes fixed the other, then a perfect hard brake pedal!!!! 2 weeks of my life lost though.....

A severe reluctance to start turned out to be a poor battery and readjustment of the idle mixture. It still appears to flood too easily when starting cold.

It's been an awesome few days driving about. The new exhaust is awesome. I wouldn't be surprised if it had some higher ratio diffs in there as it just lopes along at 100km/h, though I believe I can see the fuel gauge moving at that speed.

Things to sort out:
- Sort out the choke setup. The carby has had most of the linkages for cold start high idle removed from it, leaving the basic butterfly only. This makes starting cold a pain. It may have been OK in the hot Pilbara but I can see issues in the colder SW of WA, especially in winter.
- Sort out the speedo. There was no cable in it originally and I bought one for a Stage 1 but it does not fit the rear of the instrument. I need to figure out if I can make an adapter somehow.
- Finish the dash to fit 3 gauges and a radio.

In the New Year I'll look at a roll hoop mainly to provide the upper seatbelt anchorages if I remove the roof. Some steel SHS sliders are on the to-do list also.

Cheers,
Chris

Looks great Chris! Brakes can be so frustrating some times, even on the new ones!

Cheers,

Agreed, I hate brakes! I have a similar horror story with my 88" - turned out to be a faulty Master cylinder (was brand spanking) another new one fixed the problem and they bled up fine.

Your rig looks great! It makes me miss my 109 a bit....

An old bush mechanic got me out of a brake problem in my 1982 stage one donkeys years ago outside Bathurst... ...he jacked up the driver's side front as high as it would go and bled the brakes from the nearside rear first, working his way round the vehicle doing the highest( offside front) slave last. Wouldn't fix a blocked line though. I have used this method on Tr2s and 3As and MX5s as well as on various series Landrovers and it is a great way to bleed to get a rock hard pedal.
By the way, that's a seroiusly nice Stage One you have!

Looks great Chris.Will make a brilliant fishing buggy,especialy when you take the roof off.
ENJOY
Andrew

The vacuum and reverse pressure bleeding worked really well. The other issues slowed me down. Both methods used a glass jar and some plastic tubing. The vacuum was sourced off the maniold vacuum at the centre diff switch. The reverse pressure was run off the air compressor via a regulator set to abt 20psi. This method seemed to bleed better but I had a few brake fluid showers when the tube would pop off the bleed screw 😠😠😠. When using my trusted volunteer on the brake pedal method, every time I released the bleed screw at the wheel the fail piston would trigger, forcing removal of the switch again to reset it 😠😠.