BRAKE PIPES

Unfortunately all did not go as well as I had hoped. I first fitted the two pipes that run from the master cylinder to the PDA valve and they fitted very neatly, my bending was accurate enough. Sadly I had failed to notice that at the PDA end of the pipes the screw in connectors are different sizes and when I came to connect the pipes they just wouldn't connect. I tried to reroute them and did manage to get them correctly connected, but it looked really messy.

The old steel pipes were undamaged but scruffy and partially covered in black paint. I wire brushed the paint off and then using my bench grinder with polishing mops I got them to a presentable state and refitted them. They fitted well and looked good.

I went on to fit the pipes to each front wheel, the long pipe from the PDA valve on the nearside that ran underneath the car to the offside wheel fitted well and clipped neatly into place.

The short run, from the PDA to the nearside wheel again fitted well, but the connector to the flexible hose was wrong. After some head scratching I decided I would buy a cheap pipe flaring kit from EBay, I could rescue the correct fitting from the old pipe and awaited the kit to arrive.

For less than a tenner the kit worked well, it also included a pipe cutter, I checked out a couple of YouTube instructional videos and then had a couple of try out on my discarded pipes. When I was confident I cut off the flair and removed the incorrect connector from the actual pipe and slipped on the old  connector and thankfully got a good looking double flair onto the pipe and in no time at all it was fitted.

The difficult run was the one right to the back brakes. Crawling around under the car, I eventually managed to unclip the old pipe by mostly breaking the clips, which also hold the fuel line. Replacement pipe clips are on order, but I did manage to get the new pipe into place and connected at both end and ready to bleed.

Jacquie was convinced to climb up into the car and I instructed her how to press and release the brake pedal on my command. We started with one of the back brakes and all was going well, when I noticed a puddle on the floor under the front of the car. I dried the underside of the transmission from which the fluid was dripping from, but I could not see anywhere that the leak could have come from, all the joints were dry, so I decided to leave it for the day as I was tired and disheartened and thought that one of the pipes must have a pin prick hole in it.

The next morning Jacquie was back in the driving seat and I was underneath with my torch looking for a leak as Jacquie applied pressure to the brake pedal, nothing, nada, no leaks anywhere and I can only assume that when I jacked the car up, trapped water and degreaser from when I degreased the engine must have found a route down to the gound. The next three brakes where quickly bled and I was reasonable happy, but the pedal was a tad spongy. Jacquie agreed to help me once more and it didn't take long to whip each wheel of in turn and indeed a little bit of air was extracted and now a super hard pedal.

Just got to fit the new, dual pipe clips which have arrived, not looking forward to that job, but it is essential as I noticed that the fuel line is actually touching the front UJ of the propshaft.