The Dark Wob

That global warming was great in '76 eh?

Bloody was, mate, I have been trying to make it happen ever since but no joy so far.

Mojo has been low and busyness has been high recently for getting on with this.

Riveted on the pipe mount I made.


Cleaned up and painted the offside brake back plate. Also mounted the cylinder while it was off the car.



Then mounted the back plate to the car.


Fitted all the brake gubbins.


Fitted brake hose and hard line. Did a slight different routing for the hard line. Bit neater I think.



Then fitted the hard line to the brake regulator valve. You'll notice I moved to bolts on this. After 9 rivets, I gave up trying to get it fixed with them. Kept coming off every time I wobbled the plate with any force. I think the back of the subframe isn't dead clean hole. Screws right PIA to fit but much more secure.


Finally put the subframe to hard-line hose on.


Next up will be to get the front hoses changed (hopefully a lot less of a 'mare) and then get some fluid back into the syste. Finally clutch system and then buttoning up the rest of the car.

I hate dealing with brake systems.

Had a bit more time yesterday to get on with this.

Firstly changed the front hoses. These are the old ones. Quick enough job that I forgot to take after pictures.


Blowing compressed air through the old ones showed that there was significant restriction in them. However the front brakes still seem pretty stuck on and can't be turned over by hand. Hopefully the engine had enough power to free them. Worried the calipers maybe seized up.

Buttoned the back drums together


Then pressurised the brake system to 28psi without fluid in the pump. Hissing in the back turned out to be a small leak from the rear cylinder bleed nipple. Nipping this up stopped this.


Then refilled the system with fresh fluid and pressure bled it. Pedal seems to hold pressure and doesn't sink. Pedal seems no better than it was though

Also changed the clutch master fluid too. Didn't get all the old stuff drained out the bottom, so got dirty again pretty quickly. Might have to suck it all out and refill. That can wait for now.


Then tried squirting grease into the ball joint nipples. Not sure what went wrong here but most of it ended up around the nipple than thru it. I removed the nipples and they seemed quite happy to let grease through.

Is there different size attachments for these things?


With the brakes mostly done (just handbrake left) and the mechanicals nearly done (needs carb tuning), I turned to sorting the non functional door lock on the passenger side.

Took out the mechanism and had a good play. I think it's actually fine just works differently to the rears when locking. The rears stay in the up position when locked, while the fronts seem to move back to the middle. Either way it gives me a good chance to clean out this mechanism and give it a good lube up with white grease or something.



Mechanism itself is quite a complicated affair of leavers and springs. All riveted together making it a possible nightmare to put together if opened up. I suspect these are designed to be throw away items if they fail.

I hope you are going to put a split pin through that handbrake clevis at some point ! With the door catches I find washing them out with WD40 or similar to get them all moving, then blow out and liberally grease them. With the grease nipples have you got a modern / new grease gun ? I suspect they are all metric now and just don't fit so well as the old ones.

panhard65 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:26 am I hope you are going to put a split pin through that handbrake clevis at some point ! With the door catches I find washing them out with WD40 or similar to get them all moving, then blow out and liberally grease them. With the grease nipples have you got a modern / new grease gun ? I suspect they are all metric now and just don't fit so well as the old ones.

Haha yes when I took that picture it reminded me that I still needed to put a pin in.

Grease gun is a modern Machine Mart unit. Worked fine on the MGB nipples, but maybe someone had swapped them out at some point.

All of them on this leak out the side, so I don't think it's the nipples. Changed to the spare (unused) attachment for the grease gun and it did exactly the same thing.

I suspect maybe it's something like you said and there is a size difference between metric and imperial. Next problem is readily finding a grease gun with imperial end that is buyable without hunting for questionable old second hand units.

The gearbox nipple really needs a good squirt of grease. However it's a right 'mare to get the gun attached there (stupid place and access). Changing it is out of the question without dropping the engine.

Does it feel like it "clicks" onto the grease nipple ? I would maybe try new nipples first as that's cheaper than an old grease gun.

Yeah it does click on. Requires a fair amount of force to get it to attach. Did try pressing harder but it doesn't want to go on much more.

SiC wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:10 amWorried the calipers maybe seized up.

Not something to worry about even if they have. Those twin-piston fixed calipers are far less hassle to sort out compared to the later swinging singles.

Eddie Honda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 2:19 pm

SiC wrote: ↑Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:10 amWorried the calipers maybe seized up.

Not something to worry about even if they have. Those twin-piston fixed calipers are far less hassle to sort out compared to the later swinging singles.

Iirc they're identical calipers to the MK2 Spridget. So plenty of spares available, unlike the MK2 and MK3 1100.

Pads are the same as the TR7 and Minis with the 8.5inch discs.

The disc themselves are unique afaik. Mine have no lip but irritatingly are pitted. Being only to the ADO16 mk1, they're expensive to replace.