Sunday 19 October 2014

Job Done

Earlier today I had a small excursion to the local petrol station, where I purchased almost six litres of fuel. I put half in the Fury & waited - no splashing sounds - good. I put the rest in & looked underneath - no drips - even better.

I left it for a while in case some small seepage became apparent, but there was none, so I turned on the ignition (no fireball - getting better & better) & turned on the fuel pump. Nothing.

Peering under car's pert rump, I found a spade terminal disconnected. With that fixed I moved the switch again & was rewarded with a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooooooh, as the pump flooded the system & built up pressure. Still no leaks.

I turned the pump off & back on while watching the return hose - no jumping (regular readers may recall this was the reason for fiddling with the fuel system in the first place). So that gripe appears to be sorted. I'll have to run the pump for longer & do a proper leak check, but nothing's gushing.

So the only thing left was the un-bled brakes. My wife returned from a shopping trip & offered to operate the brake pedal (usually a comical sight to behold as she's very nearly a foot shorter than me & has to sit in the footwell to reach).

I moved the car out & jacked up the rear, found some hydraulic fluid, but could I find a jam jar & length of clear hose? No dear reader I could not.

However, I did find an "eezibleed" kit I'd bought some years ago, so I set about the car solo. The rears bled down pretty easily, opening & closing the valve helped move some reluctant bubbles, I then opened the valves in the Wilwood front callipers just to get some fresh fluid into them. I climbed aboard the car & pushed the centre pedal, it went half way to the bulkhead. I jiggled it up & down in the time honoured method of "pumping up" brakes with air in, but nothing changed. I tried bleeding the rears again & managed to loosen a few bubbles who thought there were there for the long haul, but not enough to give me half a pedal back.

Only one thing for it, the "self adjusting" brakes hadn't, no surprise there then, they never seem to. I took off the wheels & the drums & adjusted them by hand, re-assembled & I now seem to have serviceable brakes Hoorah!

So the car's ready to go as soon as the month turns & I get it taxed. Thanks to being made redundant I've done a whole winter's refurb in two weeks as well as a whole bunch of decorating & landscaping & ironing & washing up.

What a virtuous person I am.

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