A Better Day

Last Sunday I gave up in (mild) disgust and exasperation as I seemed to be getting nowhere fast trying to bleed the newly completed brakes.

I cleaned up all the tools and put them away.

Today I decided to get the car out of the garage to blow away the cobwebs of the last few weeks it's spent inactive in the garage.

The car fired up no problem and as I drove out of the garage I thought I'd give the brakes a try. They aren't perfect, but they are working - great news.

Better than that (and I don't really want to write this down as I suspect it may be a dream), my efforts on the remote oil filter (and replacing a couple of dodgy looking clips on the rubber hoses that connect the transmission to the oil cooler at the base of the radiator) appear to have been rewarded with a car that no longer leaks oil - great news.

Oil Leak

I spent a good part of today changing the equaliser over on the parking brake and adjusting it. In the way that old cars have of repaying expenditure and time spent by developing further and more esoteric faults, the car decided now would be a good time to pump most of the contents of the sump onto the ground.

It was at this point that it became apparent that the RHD version of the oil pump has been modified. I'm pretty sure this was done because the steering box was in the way of the oil filter. The RHD car has a remote filter fed by two hoses and mounted on a bracket above the alternator. One of the hoses has sprung a leak so I suspect it'll be off to the '67 again to plunder hoses for the 68.

Even more on Brakes

Since I haven't finished the brake pipework yet, I've been moving the car around using the parking brake. This isn't that easy since it's one of those weird American style ones with a pedal and a release lever.

When I was stuck on the main braking system, I thought I'd adjust the parking brake. It took a while, but I got it to a point where both wheels could be locked and the car wouldn't move on the parking brake - great - or so I thought.

On returning to it, the parking brake had jammed on. Even releasing it, it applies itself when it feels like it - especially in reverse.

Time for a more detailed investigation.

The first thing I found was that the 68 was missing the return spring. The photos show the one I stole from the '67.

The second thing was that the equaliser bar was fitted the wrong way round - this means the left hand brake will operate way before the right hand and adjusting the cable tight enough to get the right hand one working leads to binding on the right hand side. I suspected this after consulting the workshop manual and confirmed it by checking on my new best friend, the unmessed with '67.

As usual - good news and less good news

The good news - some very kind and helpful blokes off the AMC mailing list sent me details on where the clip goes. Great. It was all going swimmingly until I had a coffee break.

Upon returning I had to try and fit the flexi hoses. Unsurprisingly the left hand side union was seized solid to the old steel pipe. Removing the old fexi hose caused the steel pipe to twist and snap. Realistically, although I could have fixed the flexi hose on by keeping the fixed pipe union static and turning the flexi, that wouldn't have helped when I had to tighten the pipe at the other end - or for future removal.

The only option was to chop the pipe and put in a new section. The pipe was otherwise in good order and I decided this was preferable to trying to replace the whole pipe as it runs the width of the engine bay and disappears into a mass of pipework and wiring at the other end.

This was fine in itself until the former that deforms the end of the pipe snapped off - maybe the steel pipe was a bit too hard for it.

Oh Well - off to my favourite spares and tool shop in the morning....

Brakes (still)

I'm now stuck on one tiny detail - I have the parts manual diagram for the '82 Concord brakes but because the view is exploded and I've never done '82 Concord brakes, I can't work out where the little spring clip goes...

Off with the old....

Time to take off the old discs, spindles and caliper brackets (the calipers had remained off since they spewed fluid everywhere.

One side proved very tricky, even after a good soaking with WD-40 so I asked for help on the excellent Practical Classics Forum. A helpful poster on there recommended Loctite Freeze and Release, and once I tracked some down, it was excellent, so the nearside came off really easily.

New Parts have arrived

The whole Kit for the brake change has arrived from the USA - great stuff.

Argghh Brakes

I dismantled and reassembled the left hand caliper. As soon as I'd managed to bleed the system effectively, fluid started pouring out of the outboard bottom piston (again). Worse still, the exact same thing started to happen on the other side, which, as far as I know, wasn't happening before :(

I did manage to adjust the parking brake so that it works well, much to my surprise.

A complete new front brake setup complete with spindles is now on the way from the US.

Not sure what to do with the '67 - I keep stealing parts of it for the '68 but it's a far more original car that hasn't been messed with, but it is a mess inside and under the bonnet (hood).