How do you like them parts trays? It really is amazing what you can get used to in short order. Cass was taking a pic of my little cleaning station, but I notice that I’m sitting on two tires, wearing flip-flops, and backed by a bunch of broken toilets. The table doubles as a drying rack, that bucket in the back is the washing “station” filled with rainwater and a Styrofoam cup to dole it out, and I’m smiling because I remembered I had a battery charger in the trunk, and can listen to tunes without running it down now. Oh, and the spiky hairdo is because I soak my head as often as needed to stay cooler.
**Edit 2018 – I love this pIcture. If there were ever a picture that put me into words, this is it. ** Today started with nothing much else but hope. After the morning coffee, three of us set out, Lee, Cass and I, in search of the final parts needed to get me rolling again. Not one in 50 here knows the names of the streets because they aren’t marked, and all I had was the bill from the place I bought the copper line, which had an address on it.
I had an inkling it was “over that way”, google murps put me on to the right direction, and with Lee as local tour guide, we made our way, piecemeal, to that same place. There, they made up the flexible line after checking all the fittings, and also flared and bent a new line for along the axle.
While they were doing that, we walked up the street to another place and found new rubber dust covers for the wheel cylinder. They are a close enough match to do the job with a little McGyvering. The only ones they had were much better than the ones I didn’t have, so on we went to find a replacement flat blade that I snapped the tip off the night before.
By the time the list had all been checked off, we had walked all the way up to the Interamerican Highway, with the mid-day sun staring down on us. The back of my head was on fire, and any duck into an air-conditioned store was lovely. Yes, l o v e l y. Cass would roll in it if she could. Lee, 71, shrugs it off, having spent 12 years in the Australian outback before his 15 years here, and wonders why I’m thirsty. Maybe 15 years here would put a camel hump on my back, but not yet, not by a long shot.
Parts in hand, Cass and I took a 30c bus ride most of the way back, and walked again from there. After a shower back at the hotel, I felt normal again, and it was time for lunch, but not before I smoked my 25c cigar. 
LOL. We found these along the way. Locally grown tobacco, sun dried, rolled by hand, and not bad at all. Not the prettiest looking cigar, but it burnt at one end, stayed that way, and didn’t close your throat, so for 25c it was worth a good laugh.
That’s a serious bag of tobacco there. That, and nothing else. No chemicals, added nicotine, etc… healthy even.
Belly full, I didn’t want to move, but back to the car again to start putting it back together.
First I had to buff up the backing plate to accept a tack weld, then the wheel cylinder got the same treatment with a wire wheel Lee has on site. 
After a good cleaning to get rid of any grit, I reassembled it with the new boots, and started on the lines.
First the flexible hose, then the old passenger side, then the one end of the new line, then the other all in a loose fit. There was some bending and shaping still required, but the guys had done a pretty good job of it, so it was more like tweaking here and there before I was satisfied with the fit.
Next, to snap the wheel cylinder back in place – these things go on a lot easier then they come off – and it was then a matter of reconnecting everything with lots of grease to ward off the problems I’d just suffered through. 
I’m sure much of it will get blasted off the first time I get caught in the rain, but hopefully it will attract a bit of road dust first to help it stick. At the very least, there won’t be the chance of having water get between the line and fitting again.
Yes, it looks a mess, and I don’t care. Having things nice and clean was part of the problem down here, so enough of that.
So now, the only thing that isn’t connected yet is the end of the flexible hose to the main line going forward. I don’t want brake fluid anywhere near my buffed surfaces before it gets the tack-welds in the morning.
Should all go well, what remains is a laundry list of things I thought I’d be doing two weeks ago. Oil change, timing check, inspect the front end (although it still looks pretty good), gear oil, K&N oil for the air filter, and whatever else I haven’t thought of because I was too distracted by this.