The next day I had a quick look under the car.  I noticed there was a lot of brake fluid on the drives side rear tyre.   Looks like I had a rear brake fluid leak on my 450SLC.

I was going to put the car up into the air and have a look, but it occurred to me that I had the lines and hoses replaced by a shop less than 12 months ago and it might be a better idea to take it back there and let them take a look.   Turns out it was as the rear brake fluid leak on my 450SLC was caused by a hole in one of the new brake lines.   The reason it had a hole was that the line was ever so slightly too short and when the suspension was on full travel it would nick the line and after some spirited driving and done so enough to create the hole.

They replaced the line at no charge and re-bled the system.  Once done, I was back to good breaks again on the 450SLC.   Pretty good customer service I think.  I still have a few more things to do on the 450SLC.   It feels like I have a bad transmission mount and I probably need a new fuel accumulator.   I have already purchased those parts.   The car also needs a pinion seal on the diff but I don’t think I will try that job myself.

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I have since found out that I made a pretty stupid mistake.   Instead of checking the new parts properly, I used the old ones to determine how they should fit.   In this case, I fitted the calipers based on the position of the old ones.   If I had checked the part numbers properly, I would have seen they were on the wrong sides.   Additionally, if I had used even a modicum of common sense I would have seen the bleeders were facing down, not up.     Why is this a problem?   Having the bleeders facing down means it is pretty much impossible to bleed the brakes.   Instead of pushing the air out, the fluid will just run out leaving air in the calipers.

The brake shop first put the SLC rear calipers on the right sides.   Then they made up new hard lines for the rears to go from the hose to the caliper.     After that, they changed the hoses.   The fronts were not much of a problem.     They had the same problems I did with the rears – no matter what they tried they could not undo the fittings.    I suspect that due to the extreme heat from the sticking rear calipers, the metals were almost welded together.

In summary,  I have an entirely new rear braking system.   New calipers, rotors, hard lines on both sides and hoses.    I also have a new master cylinder and front hoses.    The brakes feel great, and now the brakes are not dragging, the car feels more lively.

Incidentally the shop I took the car to has recently done some work on a 50,000km 450SLC.   They commented that mine rode better and seemed to have more power.   Not bad after 300,000km.

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The unit on my car was only around 18 months old, and it was clearly the problem here.    When removed and bench tested, the piston was obviously sticking in the bore.    The theory my mechanic has is that the new parts are susceptible to corrosion, but if they are used every day like a modern car, would probably be OK.   Under irregular use like a classic, they quickly develop these sort of problems.    He has stopped using them on customers cars and now fits rebuilt units.   Same goes for the servo, where a new unit was recently replaced with a rebuilt.

With a rebuilt unit it is possible to ensure the piston and bore have the correct coating to last a long time with irregular use.

This evening I took the car on a longer drive of around 25 miles.   I had almost forgotten how nice the car is to drive when working properly!  I had great pedal feel, the car rolled easily after stops and the engine wasn’t lugging from sticking brakes.   The brakes squealed a bit, probably from the pads being a bit glazed from the sticking.

I will have to drive the car a few more times, but its possible the braking problem is finally solved.   Since I have owned the car I have changed:

• The master cylinder (twice)
• The slave cylinder
• The Servo (twice)
• All the flexible brake hoses
• Rebuilt the front calipers
• Fixed incorrect brake line routing where the rears/fronts were reversed
• Brake light switch (twice)

I will be very happy if I don’t have to attend to the brakes for quite some time on the E-Type.  The last good drive I had in the car was early 2016, so I am looking forward to a few more.

The post Sometimes new parts are not better appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

A couple of months ago, I had the master cylinder and booster replaced.   At first, I thought this had fixed the problem as the very uneven pedal pressure was gone.   However, sure enough after a couple of more sustained uses of the brakes, the non-release problem was back.

This time, I suspect the rears.   The rear callipers are pretty much now the only part of the brakes that has not either been replaced or rebuilt.   In addition, when trying to reverse the car it felt like it was fighting to get the rear axle moving.    My car does not have original rear brakes, the callipers have been replaced with XJ6 units, a useful upgrade.

Oddly enough, the brake lights were lit up even with the brakes not applied.   What started out as an enjoyable short drive in the car soured a little bit as I had to wait about 20 minutes for the brakes to release enough to move the car.     I also noticed I had forgotten to put the rear plate on the car.   At least it was a short drive!

Some cars seem to have an ongoing gremlin that is not fixed despite many attempts.   My 450SLC is similar with its perennially leaking transmission.    Sure enough, when moving the SLC out of the way to use the Jag, a red pool was visible where the car was parked.     I really would like to get to the bottom of this braking problem on the E-Type.  I have not had a good drive in the car since May 2016.

The post E-Type brakes, holding on for dear life appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

In addition, the braking problems that have plagued this car had re-surfaced on the drive back from Oberon.   Yet again, the brakes were not releasing properly.   I also noticed a fairly bad fluid leak after the British Car show from the front left caliper.

The front calipers had been re-sleeved before, but the seal was not quite the right size and so it was causing the brakes to hang up and not release properly.   Even more worrying, on further examination of the braking system, the front and rear brakes were reversed on the master cylinder.    This is not ideal because the system is supposed to provide bias to the front brakes (normally around 60-70% depending on the car) to stop the rears from locking up as the load is transferred to the front wheels during braking.    I’ve never had to do a real panic stop in the E-Type, but chances are the rear brakes would have locked up which can cause the car to loose control.

So to fix these problems a new brake pipe was installed so the brakes were installed correctly and the caliper was re-sleeved again with a new seal which will hopefully keep the fluid in and the brakes working correctly.

As well as this there was a fairly bad leak from the differential and the drive shaft coupling was quite worn.   Since the diff had to come out, it seemed like the right time to do a ratio change.   As my car was originally a USA car, it is fitted with a 3.54 ratio, whereas cars sold here in Australia were fitted with 3.07.    My car after it was restored was fitted with 3.07, but the previous owner put it back to 3.54 and now I am reverting it to 3.07.   First gear is particularly useless with 3.54.    While it was out the driveshaft coupling was replaced and the driveshaft painted up and re-installed.

One of the headlights was not working correctly either, so instead of putting in another useless sealed beam, the car is being converted to halogens with relays.   Not concours correct but much better and far safer if driving at night.

So far, I think the brakes are still not quite right.   The pedal pressure varies from being very soft to very hard which makes me suspect the master cylinder.

I am quite happy with the ratio change.  First gear is now quite a useful gear and acceleration is still brisk as you hold the gears for longer.

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