Talbot Sunbeam Rally car Brake fix

Malc had taken the car out a couple of months back and had reported that the brakes weren't working very well and that the handbrake wasn't working at all. As it will be in action at the Lombard Classic event at Revesby abbey this weekend we figured it was time to have a look and see what was what. It was easy to see that the master cylinder on the handbrake was seized, replacement or rebuild was the only option. As soon as I looked at the footbrake master cylinders I noticed some seepage so decided they would need replacing or rebuilding too. I looked up prices and found the price of 3 new cylinders was about a fiver more than rebuilding the original Girling items so we just bought new. Two of them were 625 - 5 /8ths of an inch and the one for the fronts was a .75 or 3/4 inch one.

The handbrake one was a pretty easy job except we had to use the old push rod, which needed slight modification to fit the new cylinder, Russ soon had that fettled and fitted. it was all going so well until we came to remove the push rods from the bias bar fixed to the brake pedal assembly. no matter how we tried to approach it access was just impossible for a worn out 60 year old with piss poor eye sight. In the end we had to remove the driver's seat and half the roll bar so I could get in, lie on my back, head under the steering wheel and reach up to loosen off 2 very tight 10mm nuts. once that was done it was easy to get the 2 cylinders out, getting the new ones in was a walk in the park.

We did however sense a sub optimal scenario caused by something being sub-optimal - when we drained the cylinders one of them was half full of what looked a bit like dirty chewing gum. The sort that perhaps a tramp had found, had a bit of a chew on and then discarded - it was nasty. Actually it was most likely caused by mixing DOT5 and DOT4 brake fluid, one is mineral based and the other silicon - they should never be mixed, for exactly this reason. We took both reservoirs off and gave them a good clean, we made sure the pipes were empty and that clean fluid was pumped trough them before we bled it all up. When we inspected the old cylinders we found that the one for the rear brakes was seized, which would definitely have caused Malcolm's concerns. 

The front calipers are 4 pot Lockheed racing ones, very expensive and a bit of a bitch as each caliper has to be bled twice. it took a a fair bit as the master cylinder and all the pipes were empty from where we evacuated them to clear any chance of tramp's chewing gum being in there. Russ did the foot pumping and handbrake operating while I did the spannering and shouting of "up, down, on, off" while we evacuated the air from the front, rear and handbrake circuit. It's all working lovely now, we tested it in the car park. it's nigh on impossible to lock the footbrake because there is so much grip from the soft compound very wide tyres but it certainly pulls up much, much better now. Handbrake turns are a simple affair, so much better than a cable operated system.

So that's it really, if you want to see the video, here it is -