Down to my last used Jonny. Only the Anglia 105E left.

[jonny69]

MOT pass for the Insight today. No advisories, as usual. I think that’s seven in a row since it’s been in my hands that it’s passed without even a single advisory. 

Still for sale btw

[jonny69]

I’m having one of those days when everything is fighting me.

Short while back I was under the car sorting something else out and I noticed the inside of the rear tyre looked wet. Leaking slave cylinder. Popped the drum and confirmed, which is a pisser because I only replaced it recently. Well that sums up my current experience with remanufactured parts, they’re mostly now shit. Popped the other drum off while it was up and ordered another pair, figuring I’ll just* replace both while it’s off the road and be done with. 

Well, that was about 3 months ago. Since then the garage has filled up with shit again, so for a start I’m now rolling around in dirt all over the garage floor. Ideal conditions for changing brakes. 

Typically, I don’t seem to have anything the right size to put over the ends of the brake pipes, so they’re dripping onto rags while I’m working. First one put up a bit of a fight going in. Thought I was doing something wrong at first but, no, it’s just a bloody tight fit. All this time and my rags are now soaked in brake fluid. Then the spring plates don’t want to go on. Why not? Because the new ones I bought aren’t the same as the originals and really need some muscle and screwdrivers to get them in. Bastads. 

So onto the other side. This one is definitely not going through the hole. Even took the backplate off to get a straighter shot at it, but no way. The cylinder is definitely oversized and it’s not going to go through. 

Back to the house for a file then. Suddenly pissed it down as soon as I slapped the garage door shut and I got soaked walking back to the house. I’ve now rage-filed the bastard thing and looking gingerly out the window to see if it’s about to soak me again when I walk back round. 

God I hate the smell of brake fluid. 

[jonny69]

Job done - that was a bastard. And to cap it off, I didn’t check if the bleed nipples were done up, so when I started pumping fluid through the system I sprayed a couple of pumps of brake fluid all over my jack and the garage floor. 

Injuries sustained: smashed knee, bumped head, sprayback brake cleaner in mouth, jabbed back and side on various sharp things sticking out the wall in my council garage. 

Anyway, it’s done now and that’s what’s important. 

[jonny69]

Looking at that picture now, I’m not sure they’re in properly. Neither side looked particularly flush and I think it’s the flashing left behind on the mould split line. I should have filed this stuff off too, might have made my job getting the clips on a bit easier:

[Bfg]

That casting flash doesn't look good does it.    What a pain in the arse.. I too hate brakes and brake fluid.  I've now had ten episodes doing my old Daimler's brakes and finally have them working again ..but not restored.  It's a job to revisit sometime and I'm wondering if I should bite the bullet and do a total overhaul, change every seal and at at the same time go across to silicon brake fluid ..most because the regular Dot-4 has a uncanny knack for getting onto paintwork.

Pete

[jonny69]

49 minutes ago, Bfg said:

..most because the regular Dot-4 has a uncanny knack for getting onto paintwork.

Pete

Argh, don’t even mention that! It’s stripped some patches off my jack (which doesn’t really matter), but where I was using the fins at the back of the car to pull myself up it’s left some eaten-away fingerprints in the paintwork. Good job it’s already in fairly ropey condition. 

[Bfg]

You're not alone...

I used a good sized sheet of rubber to cover the car's wing, when pulling out the remote servo, which is way down besides the radiator.  But got some brake fluid on the sleeve of my shirt and as I got up from refitting it (the servo) through the hole in the inner wheel arch, similarly placed my arm on the top of the wing ..behind the rubber sheet.. as I got up!   My language reflected my eternal love* of brake fluid !

Pete

 

[jonny69]

Not much excitement to report but got some news to update with.

First up is I've moved and the Anglia has a bigger garage to live in and it's got power:



Except I managed to knock the door closed onto the roof and creased it right across:



Managed to pop the worst of it out but I won't be able to get it any better than that with the headlining in place unless I weld some studs on and pull it out. So it might be a skim of filler job. As you can see, it's busted the paint off so it's going to need some filler and paint anyway.

Next up, if you know my car from back in the olden days on Retro Rides you might remember it's got a fibreglass flip front. I did this back in the early 00s because the front of mine was completely rotten and panels weren't easy to come by. I've never been completely happy with it because it's a bit of a nuisance to open and it rattles something chronic. I've had a long-term plan for a while about returning it to steelwork. About 10 years ago I picked up a useable but complete front panel for not very much money and someone on here relayed it from the IOW iirc, but since then it has been hanging in my shed:



Needs a few little bits repairing but it's still got all its internal structure with it where it has been unsympathetically nine-inched off a car.

Then a good bonnet turned up locally at a reasonable price:



And yesterday I picked up a repaired but complete driver's side wing:





Again, it's complete, as in it's got all its mounting flanges intact so it'll make returning the car back to how it should be a lot simpler. It was a bit of a drive away but the fella reckoned he had a passenger wing in similar condition stashed away but he couldn't get to it for a couple of weeks. If that turns up good, it'll be all the hardest to find bits found.

[FakeConcern]

What a PIA about the roof, I bet you cried/swore for a very long time I know I would have!

Good news on the front front though...

[jonny69]

I did swear quite a lot! Luckily the paint wasn’t in great condition. If it had been good, it would have been properly gutting. 

[rustdevil]

When a brake pipe is disconnected and pissing fluid all over you something wedging the brake pedal all the way down should stop the fluid coming out the pipe.

[jonny69]

Fuel sender time. Thought I posted about this a while back but clearly not. I had to replace my Anglia tank sender about a year and a half ago, but because the originals are mental £££££ I opted to put a universal sender in. It needed a small modification to the arm length to suit the tank, just a simple bend, but I slipped or something and managed to jam the whole thing up. I ended up stripping it to bits, re-drilling it to realign everything and then reassembling which I remember was mega fiddly. It didn’t last long and at some point stopped reading. I’ve got a bit of time off over Christmas so I’m going to sort it then. Patience Time is short these days so I thought for the sake of £30 I’ll just sling another one in save trying to diagnose the old one. So:

One other thing, was it read backwards. I don’t know how I missed this when I was checking compatibility, but the resistance was round the other way to the original, so it read empty when it was full and full when it was empty. I checked this new one and it was the same. From memory, I seemed to remember that you could slip the coil of wire out. I figured I could probably flip it round, so I popped the new one open to have a look:

Yup. So I turned it round and re-soldered the little wire on the other side. It now reads correctly so all I’ve got to do is replicate the bend in the arm before I put it in.

[jonny69]

Also picked up the other side wing a couple of weeks ago. That’s all the expensive hard to find stuff now found at a sensible price 👍