Brakes... recommissioning- bleeding problems!

Well if you have read my prevìous posts then you will know that I took advantage of the hub strip to swap the discs for slotted, the pads for Greenstuff and the flexibles for braideds. Obviously there was some loss of fluid during this process, but I wasn't too worried because I wanted to renew it anyway. However, I didn't want any uncontrolled leaks (famous last words) so I took steps to keep leakage to a minimum.

Swapping the hoses was pretty straightforward- or so I thought- I've done this loads of times and not had a problem. However, when I came to bleed the brakes the next day this is what greeted me... the brake M/C clearly empty in one compartment!! It cant have been like this before or one of the garages would have commented on it! Perversely perhaps the front section of the MC serves the rear brakes.

Front section of br MC clearly empty- lots of crud left in bottom.

 I was worried by the amount of crud that had accumulated and decided the MC really had to be cleaned- hoping a rebuild will not be necessary! I siphoned out the old fluid using a vac pump.

 Nasty old fluid- if this was your urine test you'd have good reason to be worried!

 MC reservoir held on by two screws, one in each of these recesses, remove these

Reservoir hold down screws. I will clean these before refitting.

... and  ease the reservoir out of its rubber seals.

 There is also some corrosion around the fluid entry seals, I carefully cleaned around these.

 and on the base of the reservoir

 Lots of cleaning, shaking and suction got the reservoir clean.

 Refitting space is tight- good idea to use a screw holding screwdriver

The reservoir just pushes in. I then refilled and attempted to bleed the system. It helps to remove the wheels. The rear nipples need a 7mm offset ring spanner and the fronts an 11mm flat ring.

I first used a hand vacuum bleeder- I've tried this before without success but thought I would give it a chance again. Same result. Air is sucked in around the threads of the bleed screw which obviously has to be loose when bleeding. This means you simply cannot tell when clear clean fluid appears. I gave up again and reverted to the Gunsons  pressure bleeding system.

Here is where I found the problem, the rear hose was leaking with an obvious drip and this I think accounts for the lack of fluid in the front section.

Apologies for the lack of pics here- but I will add the following pointers...
1. Access to the rear hose is greatly improved by raising the car and  removing the rear offside wheel.
2. Do not attempt this task on the hottest day of the year
3. If you do,  and you then find unexpected hitches try to remain calm and temperate
4. Good divorce lawyers can be found in the Yellow Pages

Anyway to cut a long story short- the rear hose passes through a bracket. The bracket is flanged to provide strength which means on one side the hose nut is recessed below the flange and impossible to grip with a spanner. To prevent this I had used a couple of plain washers below the bracket to pad back the top hex section of the hose and move the hex end section out from the bracket. Unbeknownst to me this had left insufficient thread on the other side (ie where the metal pipe flare has to be pushed up against the end of the flexible hose). As a result although the pipe terminal nut was tight-  it was actually tight  against the hose retaining nut- but sadly not against the flared end of the brake pipe. This had left a gap between the two hoses and as a result all my fluid had excited through this union!!

I repeated the pressure bleeding process

Luckily the stain on the drive isn't yet visible... it will be when I move the car....

Having identified the problem I removed one washer and tried again- this time getting a good seal.

Pressure bleeding repeated- result spongy pedal. I will re-investigate this when the weather cools down but I suspect there is still some air in the system somewhere.

Well been bleeding for a few days now- loads of fluid gone through BUT the problem seems to be that (in my hands at least) the Eezibleed system just doesn't do it. I suspect the pressure is too low and I had to revert to the Girling one-way valve system I bought some 40 years ago to bleed my old A40! Its just a one way valve on a tube,but it means you can pump the pedal without a helper... and it seemed to solve my problem. The only drawback is that you can't monitor the fluid coming out for bubbles. I called it "done" when the tube was full of fluid and nothing else by the time I had clambered out of the car and back round. The pedal  is now much firmer... but still not hard. Lots of innuendo here but floppiness definitely not appreciated in a man my age!

• I dont know what more I could do to improve the pedal feel but I will try fitting new seals in the bmc.