Thursday, August 4, 2011

Brake Work Headway

Last night was full of success when failure was a real possibility. First, I was able to get both u-joint yokes off with my jury-rigged hub puller. Second, I removed the rusted screws holding the two rear brake wheel cylinders without torquing off the heads. Third, I unscrewed the brake lines from the wheel cylinders without issues. In the past, these tasks have been fraught with frustration.

I actually started the evening by putting a coat of black paint on the backing plates, but it hadn’t cured enough for me to install on Ringo. Instead, I worked on improving the grounding of the heater fan motor. Ever since Ringo’s been back on the road, we’ve been unable to run the fan on high since it would promptly blow the fuse. I had suspected too high a resistance somewhere in the circuit, so I had previously installed a dedicated ground wire from the flange of the fan motor to the body ground. This didn’t fix the problem, so I bought a GUP motor from the Corvair Ranch. Given that the swap could only occur with the drivetrain out of the way, now seemed like the best time to attack. After disconnecting the supply wire, I removed the half-dozen screws holding the fan/motor assembly in place. A tedious trip to the wire wheel and the offending corrosion was removed. The screws also got a good brushing. I tested the resistance between the supply contact and some of the cleaned surfaces of the flange and got the desired zero ohm reading. The reinstall was done with bulb grease on all the screws to stem the rusting tide. When all was back in place, I re-measured the resistance from the power contact to the ground bolt for the battery and still got zero. Yay!

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