Today I have been ?????????????? to my classic

[arceye]

Over the last few days (and this morning) as time permits, to someone elses car, but a nice Moggie Traveller so...

Welded front chassis leg, changed all brake shoes, replaced heater hose from matrix, changed fuel pump, popped on a new clutch pedal spring, changed spark plugs, set rocker clearances, fitted electronic ignition, a stereo and spot lights.

That means all I've done to Rusty the Riley this week is fit an electric temp gauge in place of the original and turn a Mini sender unit on the lathe so it fits the Riley, hopefully it will work...

[TerryG]

I have bled 7 litres of dot4 through the brakes on my range and they are STILL SPONGY, ARGH!
oh, and I took the mog for a new pair of tyres

[arceye]

Trying to move a Cavalier mark 3 (alright not a classic just yet but getting less common) 1.7 TD that will hopefully make a nice project for the lad. Got it running and complete with inflated tyres but back brakes shoes are locked to drums...

Much braying of drums and then son rocking it on the clutch in hope...bloody clutch cable snapped. It will have to stay where it a couple more days now.

That and replacing brake adjusters, setting up handbrake on someone elses Moggie (a '59 saloon this time), means nothing done again on Rusty Riley..

[TerryG]

Have you tried taking the wheels off then hitting the drums with a big hammer? (yes, I know I am always suggesting hammers as the perfect car repair tool)
It has worked well for me with various cars that have stuck brakes over the years.

[arceye]

That'll be tomorrows job Terry, back with more tools and a proper hammer.

[rich.]

im with terry on the big hammer.. also stick the car in reverse & give it a shunt sometimes works..

[Martin Evans]

Managed to push the car six turns of the wheels, to see how many times the speedo cable went round (6 5/12 or six plus 5 oclock). We did it twice to be sure, not forgetting the backlash. F*^%£$% pigs poo couldn't stay away long enough for us to do the job in the dry however , so I had to chamois is off when I put it back into the garage.

[JPB]

Just a thought, but is it not both easier and more accurate to jack up the axle, strap one wheel or wedge the parking brake on that side, then manually turn the other wheel to make an exact count? This also removes some of the backlash from the equation and can be done inside, no matter how the weather plays.

For those with LSDs, you can ignore the bit about strapping one wheel.

[Martin Evans]

The car needs to be on it's wheels, so allow for the squashing of the tyres, as the wheels turn. To this end, I set the tyre pressures in the middle of the range.

[JPB]

For the purposes of this exercise, which simply checks how many turns at the speedo pinion there are per turn of the rear hubs, it matters not one tiny bit whether the wheels are even fitted, one turn is still one turn. Seriously, think about it, by rolling the car on the ground you're imagining an unnecessary variable as - suppose the wheels were smaller or larger - the ratio of turns at the wheel to turns at the speedo would be constant, the only thing that can alter this is the number of teeth on the pinion or the TPM figure on the speedo face being wrong, all you need is to relate turns at the hub to turns at the head. Try it with a wheel off if you doubt this....