Finally! I've got the right rear breaks back together. I don't think I've mentioned it in this blog yet, but what caused Lady to sit for so long was that the slave cylinder on this wheel died while it was sitting for a winter and I didn't make time to repair it. Before you get judgmental, I had just had a new baby and time was tight :-)
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| Right rear breaks finally assembled |
I got the parts for my birthday back in May but the wheel cylinder wouldn't screw onto the end of the break line. Turns out this was due to what I've come to understand is normal flaring on the end of the nut. This flare prevents the nut from going into the hole in the cylinder far enough for the threads to meet up. To make sure that the threads weren't ruined, I pulled the entire line from the splitter above the rear differential. This exposed another flared nut that wouldn't go back into the splitter :-). It appeared that what I needed to do was replace the line. I don't have the tools to bend the lines or flare the nuts so I called around to various brake shops to see if they could do it for me if I brought them the old line to base the new shape on. One of them very kindly informed me that what I needed to do was to simply get some
emery cloth and sand down the ends of the nuts until they fit. I spent 90 minutes in my easy chair sanding the nuts and testing them against one of my new cylinders. Wow. I got some serious blisters on my thumb and fore finger spinning the facets of the nuts. This last Thursday I was able to put the line and cylinder back in. Finally Friday night I was able to put in the pads, springs, retaining clips and bleeder screw. One down. I'm currently sanding down the nut on the brake line on the car. There's not a lot of clearance while it's on the car. Hopefully I'll have the other side done within a week or two. Then I can bleed the system and try spinning the engine.
