Brakes and a tuneup.

Its been a while since I posted, largely because I haven't done any work on the car - which is good!! I've driven it quite a bit in the meantime. I did replace shoes and rotors on the front brakes a while ago and today I took a look at the back brakes.

Before you get started take a look at this video by John Twist. It goes through the components and assembly nicely.


To do the back brakes, its worth taking a look at them before you buy any parts. (If you can't get the drum off - check you don't have the handbrake on!) Here is what one side looked like

 

Clearly there is plenty of life left in these shoes, although the cylinder is leaking. I checked for movement in the components by depressing the pedal and making sure everything moved it should. Then I put the wheel back on. I'll order a new cylinder and do that replacement another day.

If you have a sharp eye, you'll note that both shoes are in the same way. This is not how they are supposed to be. One should be up and one should be down - they are not supposed to be symmetric. I actually just realized this and I'll fix them next time I have the brakes apart.


I also have a pinched brake line which was probably caused by someone trying to pull the car with a rope or chain around the rear axle. I'll replace that when I do the brake cylinder as bleeding the brakes will be called for.



I also did a few other maintenance items. I had noticed a little exhaust noise from under the car, so I re-positioned and tightened the exhaust brackets.

I also did a tuneup. This involved:
1. Check spark plugs and gaps. - The plugs were all nice a clean with no bad discoloration or oil.
2. Check timing. Its where I left it at 14 BTDC.
3. Check valve clearance. This is something I haven't done before, but it is pretty easy. Check out first these two videos.

First, it helps if you can turn over then engine from under the hood. This video shows you how to do it. But basically you run a wire from the brown/white pin on the ignition starter relay to the bottom fuse of the fuse box. I also disconnected the HT lead from the top of the coil.



The second video shows you how to set the valves - basically we are adjusting the gap between the tappet and the top of the valve. The system is easy once you see it! You follow the rule of 9. There are 8 valves. When a valve is in its lowest position, its' pair (they should add to 9) is the one to adjust. So the pairing is as follows:
1 - 8
2 - 7
3 - 6
4 - 5
5 - 4
6 - 3
7 - 2
8 - 1

You get the valve in to its lowest position by just turning over the motor.

I did this with a cold engine and set the gap at 0.015. It'll be a bit narrower when warm - and the shop manual recommends 0.013 for a warm engine. I'll probably go back and check it in a few days.

You do not want to set it too tight!!!! You'll wear out the cam and you'll hurt performance. If it is set right, the valves should sound like a sewing machine!



Finally, I put a 180F stat in and took out the 195. Its been running a little warm and I want to see if this makes a difference.