<VV> Blocked brake hose

[Seth Emerson]

Way to go, Hugo!  Sometimes, when you are working on these old cars, you wonder "What was going through the mind of the engineer, example, to hide the bolts?"  On the hoses, as the cars pass 50 years, it pays dividends to explore further - beyond outside looks. Hoses are relatively cheap (sorry about your shipping costs) as a replacement. Be sure to examine the steel tubes carefully. They can rust from the inside out. The final check will be the hard-harder brake test. It may sound counter-intuitive, but after you are finished, with the wheels on and brakes bled, you sit in the drivers seat and push the brake pedal really hard, like a truck had just pulled out in front of you. Then push harder, as hard as your leg can push, just for a moment. This serves as a final test of whether or not you can trust the brakes in a similar situation, when that stupid truck really does pull out in front of you. The instant adrenaline will power your leg to amazing feats. This "hard-harder" brake test is routinely performed at Autocross events, as a verification of competitors brakes, before participation. In many years of sitting in peoples cars and performing this test, I have personally blown out two brake systems. Both competitors fixed their cars and competed in the events, and both thanked me for showing them the problem. Better to find the problem there, than in front of an on-coming truck. Oh, and remember to clean up that brake fluid, it will eat up paint!

Seth Emerson 



-----Original Message-----
From: Hugo Miller via VirtualVairs <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
To: virtualvairs <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Mon, Oct 16, 2017 6:32 am
Subject: <VV> Blocked brake hose

Just doing a brake overhaul on a 1964 convertible I just bought, I 
found both rear wheel cylinders leaking. Only done the right one so far. 
There was so much crud in the cylinder I decided to flush out the brake 
lines - probably still got the original brake fluid in there! Put an 
air-line on the pipe from the master cylinder, & nothing would come out 
the back. I could blow from the back to the front (& fill the trunk with 
dirty fluid!) but nothing from front to back. Flexible hose was acting 
as a very efficient one-way valve.
Incidentally it took me a while (and a search on Google!) to figure out 
how to get the cylinder off - I ended up removing three of the nuts that 
hold the drive shaft to the backplate, & undoing the fourth to the end 
of its thread. That enabled me to pull the axle shaft out just enough to 
get a 3/8" wrench on those little fixing bolts.
One down one to go!
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