It took a while to get the wheel cylinder welded because it takes special rod to weld cast iron, and he was out of it. The store he bought it from had moved, a walk around the block where it used to be proved up nothing, and the effort basically became a morning walk. Nice enough, I guess. Cass and I then went for breakfast while Lee and Pepo drove to a different location.
While we waited for them to return, I ticked off a few other things on the list. The shifter lever needed adjusting so it was actually IN neutral when it said it was. If you stall in traffic, throw it into neutral to start it, you want it to actually BE in neutral, and not drive but saying neutral. Dangerous. 
Anyways, I got that fixed.
I checked over the front end, there’s a little play in the Pittman arm. Typical, noted, and will be watched. It would be nice to get my hands on a grease gun again, but it looks as though that is my only concern.
That’s about when Pepo showed up with the welder…
Of all the hokey setups…
Anyways, it worked, but to say I was nervous would understate things. 
The first tack looked to have blown through the backing plate, and I know what can happen with too much heat. We got a few tacks onto it, it looked to be holding, and that was all I cared about.
*Let me say here (2018) this did not work, and I don’t recommend it.* With that out of the way, I reconnected the flexible line in the middle, and broke open a bleed screw on the back passenger wheel.
Success!!! Freely flowing brake fluid. I did the same on the other side, with the same results, but when I went to tighten the bleed screw I noticed the cylinder move. Crap! The welds didn’t hold. I decided to continue on proving out the system, and that is when I noticed the drip of brake fluid under the front passenger tire. 
This turned out to be a pinhole leak in the hose to the caliper. Nice. Great. So, now it’s back to breaking things.
Now I have penetrating oil sitting on the brake line connection, and I hope it doesn’t break when I loose it, but either way I’ll be going back to the brake shop.
I guess I called it earlier when, under my breath, I said that I’d probably end up replacing all the lines in the long run. At least I now know where the brake shop is.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but not knowing WHERE to get the things you need is the most frustrating thing. Before you know where to go, you have to go asking, and sometimes you are dealing with multiple people at once. They all talk too fast to understand every word, and occasionally they like to toy with you – sending you here and there, telling you the wrong words to use, etc… It’s always fun to find out what you’ve been asking for is cow-catcher instead of a jack stand. <== true story
While I know Spanish, my vocabulary is an archipelago of disconnected subjects, and having a conversation that bridges them is a challenge. The worst of which is when you ask a question only to be replied with a question again. It makes life interesting, I guess, which is what I want really.
So, that was all yesterday. In the morning, I tried loosing the brake line, and I felt it start to slip with the brake-line wrench, so I stopped, grabbed the vice grips, put a grab on it, and broke it loose. Yayyy! I was actually quite surprised, but it didn’t last long, because what appeared to be a freely turning fitting, was in fact the top of the fitting broken loose from the threads. LOL How can you not laugh? Fer Chrissakes. I seem to be discovering all the different ways things can go wrong all in one experiment.
Have a look at that… clik on it for a full view. Now what?
Well, the next thing is to cut off the line with a hacksaw blade and contemplate flaring it with a new fitting because you sure don’t want to take the chance of the same thing happening on the proportioning valve at the other end.
A long discussion ensued regarding replacing every line including the PV valve, and we decided to leave the answer up to the guy upstairs. Well, the other end broke loose (because I was able to snake a box-end wrench all the way over to it from the cut end), and we left for the brake shop with a busted hose and steel brake line they could use as a pattern.
Cass and I walked there in 17 minutes, she says, and after some discussion and fitting confirmations, we left them to it and went for lunch. From there, we walked all the way back to the pension, grabbed a bracket I should have brought but couldn’t see a reason for until I was there, walked back to the brake shop, and they had it done. The bracket confirmed things
would work satisfactorily, and then they brought out the new front brake line – made out of copper!
Now, anyone who has spent any time in Central America, and Panama specifically, knows that getting mad is the LAST thing you want to do. There is a cultural difference here that I can’t describe shortly, but things happen sometimes that you have to shake your head at later, and the best route forward is to ask politely if he could try again using steel, and yes I know it is more difficult to work with, but the front brakes operate at approximately 300 psi, much higher under panic braking, and copper is not something I’m willing to risk my life over. I believe I managed to explain myself, I agreed I would return in the morning (around 10 which means 11, after he has had time to have a coffee or two, shoot the shit with his buds, and try again at his pace without me standing there tapping my foot. In other words, i didn’t do “The Ugly American”.
So, I guess we’ll see how that turns out in the morning. Until then, this has been a long post and Cass is looking to get fed , so off we go 
across the street once more.