Thursday, April 14, 2011

Working on brakes, breaking only to start on windshield upgrade

So 6 months have passed and the brakes are still not finished... oh I completely put it together, but I couldn't bleed the brake system.

Here's how things have unfolded:

October/November were spent searching for a "good" priced master cylinder/brake booster combination while I prepped the firewall and researched possible options others have used.
December/January I found the Master/booster/proportioning valve (97' wrangler), modified the mounting bracket, cleaned everything up then painted.



February I plumbed the brake lines (using the Napa's polly coated lines) and attempted to bleed the brakes. At first I would just open the speed bleeder valves and pump a few dozen times (topping off every 12 pumps) working my way to my to the shortest length of brake line. At the end I just rigged a really long tube from the bleeder to the master so I wouldn't have to buy any more brake fluid. So not knowing what to try next I figured the old proportion valve was junk and I would replace it with a new Willwood model and since the brake line wouldn't fit this new configuration I would just scrap them and start again.

Now don't think I was just working on just brakes all that time, oh no my A.D.D brain doesn't work that way. I used a few computer tools to scan Ebay and Craigslist, one popped up a result in November for a reproduction of a 68-73 style windshield for $60 bucks. Now I had read that Chinese parts... need to be modified to fit like the original did, but for $60 I could afford to tweak the part to fit.

So March and some of April were spent working on the new windshield frame.



More to come