I Hate When This Happens

The “this” I’m referring to is not having the right part at the right time. Sadly, Mikhaila and I had last night’s brake work stopped by not having the right brake hose. I am, however, getting ahead of myself.

Back up to Saturday. I started the sunny day by placing portable heaters in the salons of both Ringo and Glinda in hopes of drying out any dampness that may have leaked in from melting snow and pelting rain. This was in preparation for enclosing both cars in tarps. Since Glinda’s carpet was quite waterlogged, only Ringo was dried out by afternoon’s end. With a Sunday filled with rain predicted and daylight quickly fading, I went ahead and encased both cars in Harbor Freight’s finest silver tarp-age. While I removed the heater from Ringo, I kept it going in Glinda.

Also, during the afternoon, I took advantage of the Glinda’s now toasty interior to do more repairs to the headliner and sun-visors. Black thread and a curved upholstery needs were my tools to replace the failed seams.

Yesterday afternoon and evening, I burned a bunch of kerosene while spending most of the afternoon and part of the evening in the garage working on and around Scarlett. The list of tasks accomplished includes: removing both front brake lines for replacement, grinding down the new wheel cylinder so it didn’t interfere with the drum, installed the new brake hoses with the copper washers, swapped out the old left rear axle for the newly greased one (the one with all the parts), and raising the car up a few notches on each jackstand.

After dinner, Mikhaila joined me and we reassembled both rear brake assemblies. When we went to install the hoses, I discovered that I was in possession of two LM rear hoses instead of EM ones. Not sure how it happened, but back in August of 2013 Clark’s shipped me C332 even though I have C331R in my spreadsheet. This morning I was on the phone with them ordering the right parts. At some point, both Glinda and Luna will be getting new rear brake hoses.

Before calling it a day, Mikhaila and I measured the two brake lines, so I could buy replacements. We got about 29 inches for the left side and nearly 50 for the right.