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Odd brake problem.
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Penguin45



Joined: 28 Jul 2014
Posts: 381
Location: Padiham

PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 1:44 am    Post subject: Odd brake problem. Reply with quote

Here's one to ponder - doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and I think I know what's wrong.

Austin 1800. All pipework and hoses renewed; calipers, master cylinder and servo rebuilt. Odd car - you bleed the system from the shortest run to the longest - which I have done. Front and O/S rear have let fluid through quite happily - N/S rear won't. I have fluid up to the pipe union on the cylinder, nothing through the bleed nipple. I have replaced it on the off chance, but no improvement.

I'm assuming that there is a blockage in the cylinder. If that is the case it's an entirely new one on me.

I have spares, so I will replace the cylinder tomorrow and see if that does the trick. I'm more curious about what is actually happening!

Any thoughts?

P45.
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'67 Wolseley MkI 18/85, '70 Austin MkII 1800 The Landcrab Forum.
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ukdave2002



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 4100
Location: South Cheshire

PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I had a similar problem once; it was a blocked new brake pipe that I had just made. The flaring tool that I had used had a little metal pip that sat inside the pipe as the flare was formed, this had sheared off effectively blocking the pipe.

Dave
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Bitumen Boy



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1733
Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 10:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just to clarify, as I'm not familiar with the pipework on these. When you say you have fluid to the pipe union on the cylinder, has it already passed through the flexihose to get there? Reason I ask is remanufactured flexihoses can be utter pony these days and may not let the fluid through. If the flexihose is letting the fluid through and there's no problem with the wheel cylinder, have another look at the flexi as it may have a partial obstruction - and it may be that if the fluid can't flow through it freely the last bit of air may simply be compressing as you're trying to bleed, meaning you'll never get a really firm pedal. If you remove the flexi you should be able to blow air through it easily, and also see the light shining through clearly if you hold it up straight - if it doesn't pass these tests it's only fit for the bin no matter what the supplier says.

If you've replaced the wheel cylinder with a remanufactured item it would be well worth giving that a close examination as well - these suffer with all kinds of quality issues these days. I've found copious amounts of swarf in new cylinders (all ready to cut the seals to pieces) as well as drillings missing or incomplete, which could also be the source of your trouble.

I feel sure that you'll find a dodgy remanufactured part at the root of this problem, so be sure to give the supplier hell when you find it Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil

[edit - idiotic typo corrected]
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Old Wrench



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
Posts: 226
Location: Essex and France

PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You haven't mentioned changing (or at least checking) the rear inertia balance valve.

An early attempt at ABS.

Dreadful things and always giving problems!

Common to ADO 16 and ADO 17, your car..

(N.B. BMC Serial model types were all "ADO" = Austin Drawing Office).
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Penguin45



Joined: 28 Jul 2014
Posts: 381
Location: Padiham

PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We have a culprit:



The after-market supplier was indeed at fault. That'll be me, then.... Rolling Eyes Just nipped enough to allow a steady dribble of fluid to get through, but nothing more. Made another one, fitted it and things still weren't quite right, so fitted a new cylinder.





System bled up in moments after that.

It was just as well I did change it:





Apart from being old and manky, the inlet on the casting was cracked. It fell off as soon as I poked it. The dirt marks suggest that it's been partially cracked for a long time.

"G" valve has been rebuilt on this one. Fortunately, this is a MkII car, so it's just the rolling ball valve, rather than a MkI, which has additional hydraulics. It couldn't have been the culprit, as the O/S cylinder bled off just fine.

Thanks for all the thoughts,

P45.
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Old Wrench



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
Posts: 226
Location: Essex and France

PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interestingly, in the early 1970s, we worked on one of the London-Mexico Austin 1800s; by then in other hands and bought for club rallying.

Very little is known about these now: mainly I suppose since the man who ruined the proud heritage of BMC, Lord Stokes, cancelled the competitions department in 1968.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1968_Austin_1800_London-Sydney_Marathon_Car_%26_1970_Austin_Maxi_London-Mexico_City_Rally_Car_Heritage_Motor_Centre,_Gaydon_%281%29.jpg
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Ashley



Joined: 02 Jan 2008
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Location: Near Stroud, Glos

PostPosted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 12:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To be fair to Lord Stokes and Edwardes, the real blame lay with Harold Wilson.
Both men had written to Wilson explaining that BL employed 80,000 people of which half were superfluous and would have to be made redundant to save the company. In both instances Wilson refused to allow any redundancies. He wanted to make sure his successor took the blame and he sacrificed the company to do it.

At that time, there was tremendous demand for the cars, but by the time Mrs Thatcher came to power, it was too late to save it. Demand had evaporated and everyone was sick of the company.

Wilson had closed more pits than Mrs T too.

I was listening to R4 yesterday when the miners strike was being discussed. An ex cabinet member explained that the KGB were financing the unions and our secret service was desperately trying to intercept and sequestrate their funds. Russia nearly did for us in the seventies. Things were bad.

A very very dark time for our manufacturing industry and particularly our motor industry because we made some wonderful cars.
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 7113
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 1:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Unfortunately there was no easy answer to Britain's manufacturing problems in the post war decades leading up to our motor industry collapse.

Our industries were outdated, over manned and not structured to compete with Germany and Japan who had received substantial American investment to ensure they didn't fall under communist control. Not only did we not benefit from a Marshall plan, we had a substantial debt to America that was only paid off in very recent times.

Peter
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Old Wrench



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
Posts: 226
Location: Essex and France

PostPosted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ashley wrote:
To be fair to Lord Stokes and Edwardes, the real blame lay with Harold Wilson.


I could not agree.

There were many culprits.

Here is the analysis I wrote several years back.........

(Please Note: there is a temporary coding bug on the site which replaces currency symbols, inverted commas used as possessive apostrophes and parenthesis with silly symbols!)

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_16932.shtml
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice analysis OW.

Peter
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Ashley



Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1426
Location: Near Stroud, Glos

PostPosted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Old Wrench wrote:
Ashley wrote:
To be fair to Lord Stokes and Edwardes, the real blame lay with Harold Wilson.


I could not agree.

There were many culprits.

Here is the analysis I wrote several years back.........

(Please Note: there is a temporary coding bug on the site which replaces currency symbols, inverted commas used as possessive apostrophes and parenthesis with silly symbols!)

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_16932.shtml


There are a lot of generalisations in your article. For example the union problems really became a problem in World War 2 when anyone worth his salt was fighting and those that remained were a mixture of disruptive far left groups and pacifists. They refused to train women and were striking wholesale. Lord Beacerbrook, then Industry Minister, actually fired William Morris in an attempt to gain control, but it didn't work and in the end the two Union owned cabinet ministers, the Bevans, got an uneasy truce in exchange for a line of communication with armed forces and "training" them too. Really just to ensure a post war Labour Victory.

Despite all this we managed to export a million cars by 1950 and become the world's largest exporter. However despite numerous warnings from the SMMT and the fact that cars were the biggest bit of our GDP, government interference demoralised the industry and worsened still our competitiveness, so by '55 the Germans overtook us and everyone expected bankruptcy much more quickly than it happened.

However I stand by my point that Harold Wilson took a decision to prevent redundancies when two able men, with proven track records, thought they could save the company by cutting the workforce in half. There are films taken in the factory at the time on YouTube and anyone can see that there are vastly more people than needed everywhere. Unions were responsible.

It's a very complex subject and there are a considerable number of factors that led to the demise of our industry. Believe it or not, much of what I've quoted here comes from SMMT annuals of the forties and the five volume history of Rolls-Royce, The Magic Of A Name.

As with all these things, old wives tales gain credence with age and people alter the facts because they have political agendas.
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Old Wrench



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
Posts: 226
Location: Essex and France

PostPosted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 6:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I much agree about UK manufacturing restoring Britain from an impoverished nation on the edge of insolvency (nation state's cannot be "bankrupt"), to reasonable liquidity.

Furthermore, after the depredations of Clem Attlee's immediate post war government, once the Tory party under Churchill returned to power in 1951, the UK economy was able to grow again; and grow rapidly. Despite still paying down war debt, the costs of the Korean War, Malaya, etc. Plus it must be remembered, Sir William Penney (Later Lord Penney) fresh from the Manhattan Project, was tasked with creating Britain's independent nuclear weapons systems, at huge cost.

By 1957, MacMillan could crow "You've never had it so good!"

However, one must accept there were serious and significant underlying economic and social fragilities. I agree men who had hitherto not seen a different life and society, returned from military service determined to have more and better.

It is a further critical historical fact, KGB moles and plants were extremely active in Britain: particularly in unions. Indeed, in the mid-1970s, the CBI took the unique step of taking two full adjoining pages in all main Sunday newspapers and published thumbnail portraits of the main known agitators and Russian plants and paid members of the Communist Party, as a warning to employers not to employ these men!

Not one libel action ensued.

I thus return to my original assertion: Industrial Relations was a critical management dynamic, completely missing in old style autocratic major UK companies. Indeed, I experienced this first hand when working in mid sixties for Ford Europe. Rather than manage the workforce, Ford management thought only short-term in unit output and repeatedly caved into union demands.

Sir William Morris stepped down from BMC in 1952: years before Wilson's first term. The business was archaic, Morris had denied it of significant capital investment. Len Lord did his best, however, it was not enough.

Unfortunately, by the mid 1950s, product ranges of UK manufacture were tired, stale and at the very end of their product life cycle.

Bereft of cogent concepts or strategies to re-engineer the UK economy, British politicians only thought in terms of unemployment: and would thus chase mythical "employment" at any cost.

One can perhaps equally blame both Wilson and more particularly Tony Benn, for nodding through Stoke's cumbersome monolith. Stoke's early on demonstrated his lack of acumen by building a hugely expensive London HQ, replete with carpets one waded through and marble, when the business was accelerating into terminal decline.

Since those sad days, I have been involved in a number of major projects and sought government assistance and in honesty, they are raving idiots and haven't a wee clue.

The flawed National Enterprise Board typifies the problem.
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