The day before Christmas, the rear brake kit I ordered from Vic Brit arrived for my '80 Spider. The car had failed its annual inspection because of a leaky right rear wheel cylinder. The island's local mechanic offered me a deal I could not refuse. If I did the work on the car when a bay was free at this shop, he would be around to help me with additional advice and/or tools.
This afternoon, I called the mechanic to see when he could accommodate me. "Come in right now. I just need you to finish before tomorrow because I will need the bay.
So I drove the TR-7 there in a snowstorm. By 2:00 pm the car was jacked up on the right side. The first steps were not propitious. The lug nuts would not come off with a breaker bar, or with the weaker air wrench of the garage. Only the "truck" air wrench would loosen them, and then not right away. Yes when they came off, there was evidence of the gray Neverseize I always use.
The wheel itself needed a pounding with a rubber mallet, and then of course, I needed to use my hand impact screwdriver to remove the screw on the brake drum. At least the drum came off with just a tap.
Sure enough, the cylinder was leaking. Now to make certain that I had every part needed for the job, I had ordered the Vic Brit rear brake kit. Sure enough, there were the cylinders, the shoes and a lot of envelopes with lots of unidentified parts.
I had studied J Clay's wonderful slide presentation on rear brakes but promptly seemed to forget everything in the problems removing old parts. Now these shoes were covered with fluid but they had a lot of lining left. I was pretty certain these had been done about 4 years ago; the front discs had been done 2 years ago.
First problem came in removing the brake lines from the wheel cylinder. The larger one could be turned with a flare wrench but the smaller lower one could not be accessed because it is recessed into the backing plate. Who thought that one up? What was the drug intake at the BL engineering studios in the 70's? I had to resort to the most heinous act of using a small vice grip and a screwdriver as a lever to turn the locating nut and pray I did not break a line. When they finally came off, you had to make certain that you could remove the stupid C clip on the back. Land Rover just bolted the cylinder onto the backing plate - why not Triumph?
With the cylinder off, you realized that you could not put a stopper over the brake line because you had no room. So every so often, I wasted time crawling out from underneath the car adding fluid to the brake reservoir.
Now came the shoes and the self-adjusting pieces. I removed the two round spring clips and discovered that while my "complete kit" included the springs and the pins, there were no round replacement clips - the things most likely to break.
It wasn't until I started reassembly that I realized Vic Brit's other replacement springs did not include the long, double spiral one. Nor are any of the parts - springs, angled metal, C clips - included! First, I put the adjuster mechanism on the wrong side of the shoe so i wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how things went together. The Haynes Manual section on the rear brakes is very incomplete - I never could find the adjuster portion [next time, bring the shop manual you bought this September, Jeff!!].
Finally, the mechanic couldn't make sense of it either and he suggested the obvious. Remove the other wheel and drum and look at the brakes in situ. Great idea, except that the drum on the that side would not move at all. I tapped for about 10 minutes with a metal hammer trying not to break anything, but just remove the stuck drum. And yes, there was plenty of evidence of dried Neverseise, too. When it finally came off, the location of the springs, adjusters and shoes become obvious. Fortunately, the shoes on that side had a lot of lining left and the cylinder was dry.
Now it's 5:00 pm and some local fishermen have stopped by with drinks for the mechanic. Once the mechanic imbibed, the power of the 50-50 mix of vodka and orange juice [really powerful screwdrivers] took him out of the picture to help me. But by then, the reassembly could proceed apace, if with the assistance of several bystanders. "Jeez, Jeff, aren't you done yet?!!!"
By now it's really snowing outside, and there's no one to really help bleed the car. But the pedal felt ok and with luck, not much air got into the system. I'll save that for another time
So now I think I will remove the rear drums more often just to lubricate everything and prevent corrosion. And I will NEVER throw away a part when I have ordered a "complete kit." You'll need all the adjuster parts, the C clips, the round clips for the pins and the large spring that runs across the wheel cylinder between the shoes.
Thanks to everyone for their help!
Jeff
Jeffrey Aronson
P.O. Box 90
Vinalhaven, ME 04863
USA
'80 TR-7 Spider
'66 Land Rover Series II-A [2]
'66 Corvair Monza
