26 October 2013 - Rear brake mis-behaving

For the third time this week I reversed Trigger out of the drive and the offside rear drum locked with only a dab of brake. The difference in the amount of pedal stroke required to cause it to lock was major. Just a nudge with my toe and I nearly ended up over the rear bulkhead! Rolling back across the drive I could feel the shoes causing a lot of resistance so something wasn't right. Once I drove forward the issue went away.

Looking at the drums today in between wind and rainstorms there was nothing obvious on either rear assembly. All the springs were present, shoes were perpendicular to the rear plate, no fluid leakage, but there was a build up of powdered shoe material on both the drum and shoe. More so on the offside hub. Not the fine powdered stuff that would be expected to blow away but flattened lumps of it.

Now I remember that this time last year I was having issues with a weeping offside hub seal at the rear. Though I managed to get all the EP90 off the shoe could it have made it's way into the material and was causing it to break down? I don't believe I changed them. There's nowt in the blog records...mmm. Anyways these shoes aren't Mintex. Prob ChingChong?

This is the offside leading shoe. Note the surface breaking up at the top edge.

After giving them and the drums a wipe down with some solvent and a rag they were re-assembled and adjusted up so they were just dragging. Took the 109 out for about 30 miles and all seems fine...for now.

I will get a set of quality (probably Mintex) shoes ordered up for the rear next week.

27 Sept 2013 - Yet another fuel tank!!

Well after the July attempt and cost of trying to reseal the RH tank it managed to spring a leak within a couple of days. I noticed a small drip under the tank almost the size it was before the repair. Stick my hand under the tank and...yep still leaking.

I gave it a few more days just to check it wasn't trapped fuel from the last leak but no it was definitely a leak good and proper!

So what to do? Well at least this leak was very minor and the tank wasn't dropping it's level at any great rate (after 5 weeks the half full tank wasn't empty) and this is diesel/SVO blend not highly flammable petrol?

As four years ago a military tank is still around £200. This is too spendy so I did the same as before and went with the Britpart offering, which is a good copy of the original rear fill underseat type. OK the metal is not as thick but at £70 delivered you can't argue? Rob down the road was selling his ex-Mil FFR and that had a leaky tank so he donated that one so I could use the filler cap assy as before.

Now Rob's tank had leaks in almost the same locations as mine so it was worth a prod to see what I could find. Also Rob had POR15 sealed his tank as well when he rebuilt the 109.

After a combination of heating the solder joints plus a bit of crowbar'ing the support plate came away. The source of the leaks was obvious. The trapped area between the support and the base of the tank had never seen paint and was an ideal trap for 'carp' and water etc.

 

I guess this corrosion problem will exist in all tanks of this type. Applying POR15 will seal the internal surface....for a time. But if the material that the coating is stuck to is not stable the leaks will re-appear...and it can only get worse? Really what you need to do is immerse the whole tank in POR15 to do it right?....or buy the later two part pressed type from the usual suspects. They might not look 'correct' but they not have these rust traps!?

So with Rob's old tank ready to go to recycling I lopped out the old filler with the trusty 4" chop saw and made a similar hole in the new tank, after lopping the rear filler and vent stub off.  As this was a new tank I thought I would try soldering. Last time I had to resort to tack welding with the MIG.

Well the soldering worked. The fresh metal helped and a dose of plumbers flux and the lead/tin solder I had to hand did it's job. This was an old roll that came from SWMBO's late departed Dad's shed. God bless Ken.

 

 

Painted the whole tank with zinc rich primer (as before), then a good coat of exterior black gloss and left it to cure for a week. So, hopefully, this should be jacked into position this weekend. I will stick some underbody wax front and back once it's up and bolted.