Not the ideal day to be crawling around under an old Landy.
But is there ever an ‘ideal’ day to be doing such stuff?
After last weeks discovery of a new leaking brake pipe – while fixing another newly fitted, but leaking, brake pipe – sorting this was always going to trump an ideal day.
With 2 ton of motor hurtling around on the 9-5 commute, brakes always take top spot for priorities.
So even though it was cold and the wet stuff was looming overhead, Lucky (my Disco 2) was popped on axle stands and the rear near side wheel removed ready to replace the old, rusting, leaking, brake pipe, to make sure he’s got stopping power once again.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t as much of a bitch to do as I originally suspected.
“It’s cold and drizzling, there’s no way this is going to be straight forward”.
Turns out I was wrong.
Result.
With the rear wheel off, access to the brake caliper was easy, and although the pipe twisted and snapped off, removing the pipe fitting from the caliper was easy.
“Front wheel’s gonna give me grief, then”.
Wrong again.
A brake spanner cracked off the fitting no bother, and with a pair of mole grips on the flexi-hose there was little in the way of brake fluid dribbling onto the driveway.
The hardest part was manhandling the brake pipe over the rear shock absorber mount. But once that’s done, the pipe was yanked out from the rear.
New copper pipe, and zip ties in hand, knocking up the new pipe was a piece of cake…
…almost.
I always leave a little extra at each end when chopping the brake pipe – you know, just in case. Except this time, I’d not noticed the length of old pipe, sat on the floor next to the Disco, until AFTER I’d chopped the pipe.
When I yanked the old pipe out it’d broken off a section without me realising.
So when I chopped the new pipe, it turns out it was chopped waaay too short.
Also turns out there was no more copper pipe in stock.
Lucky then there’s a decent sized stash of brake fittings that’ll do the job instead.
It’s not exactly what I wanted, but it’s no less reliable than a one piece pipe. Plus it meant the job got done in one sitting.
New pipe threaded back down the chassis…
All fittings tightened (and properly this time?!)…
Brakes bled…
Job done.
Yes. It really was that inexplicably simple.
Total time, a couple of hours give or take.
The old Landy Overlords were smiling down on Lucky today.
What this also means is no more worrying about the brakes.
All pipes are present and correct, and no longer about to burst if the brake pedal’s buried on the floor.
Stopping becomes a dead cert once again, not a ‘will it wont it’ moment.
Win.
On to the next problem.
Old Landys Rule!
Phil.