Just as it says, this war isn’t over.
Last I wrote, the wrenches I bought had slipped and were an utter failure. The brake line fitting in the back was hopelessly rounded, and no conventional tool would do the job.
Pepo came in the next day, and between the two of us and a couple of pairs of vice grips, we managed to get the fitting out, but the sacrifice was breaking the old line a few inches in so we could pull the line down at the flexible end for better purchase on it with. Once that was out, I cut the line near the running board and pulled out the whole piece. This was the piece with all the bends, and would act as a template for a replacement.
Then, it was a search of the materials needed to build a brake line. Pepo continued to ferry us around from place to place, some stores open, some stores closed. We eventually found a place that could provide the right diameter tubing. A roll of copper was the best we could find. They flared one end, slid the proper fitting on it, and we left with that and a union.
Back at the Pension, I began forming it up. First with the critical first bends, using an anvil, wooden block, and thumbs, I got the shape I needed without kinking the line. Then, on with the remaining bends, one at a time, until I had what looked like a damn close match.
A little bit of cursing and knuckle scraping later, and I had it in! I re-installed it in the old clips, prepped the longer run along the side, then cut the old line where I wanted the union. Sanding, polishing until smooth, I then cut the copper line and did the same. This all went together better than expected.
Here is it installed, but I put some legs in the picture just to make it more interesting. 
The union… yeah, I know. This is the best I could come up with though. I placed it in a straight run to make it as difficult as possible to blow apart. This is, frankly, a stop gap until I can do better. Looks like I know what I’m doing, huh?
Riiiight. You should see my hands.
So that was a major victory in this little war, and hard fought. You weren’t there for the torture of translation between me, speaking Spanish at a grade two level (at best), and Pepo, who is nearly impossible to understand on a good day. I catch about every third or fourth word, which is enough to get it completely wrong about two thirds of the time. The fact that we came away with what was needed is a testament to patience on both our parts.
So, yayyy, I’ve got the new line in, now it’s time to bleed the brakes. I already had the one bleed screw loosened before discovering the busted line in the first place, so I started on the other side just to be sure I could bleed both the wheels. If I couldn’t bust that one loose, then a whole other ball game would ensue. After a bit of persuading, it came free, and off I ran.
Or so I thought…
With Cass in the drivers seat, we started the procedure. Open, down, close, up, open, down, close, up. Twenty times we did this without fluid coming through. I tried the other side, not really expecting it to work, but worth a try before anything else, and it didn’t. Then, after some thought, I disconnected the new line at the rear end, lowered the vehicle until I saw fluid draining out onto the ground, then reconnected it.
I came up with this little tool to hold in the pin on the proportioning valve. Yep, that’s a bottle cap wedged in there. I later modernized it with a strip of cardboard. Down here, you use what’s at your fingertips, however, whenever, every which way but loose.
At least I now knew I had fluid all the way to the T on the back axle. Back to the rear passenger side, after a few pumps I had fluid. Great. Same over on the other side, but I noticed it seemed a little less was flowing with the pedal stroke. Now this was weird. The pedal felt hard now, but with Cass standing on the brake, I could turn the drum by hand in neutral. ???
Hands in the air, I gave up for a bit and consulted Google, which ended up pointing me at the proportioning valve, whose function is to cut off braking to a leaking circuit, which is precisely what I had prior to beginning. It can get stuck all the way, and what was needed was low pressure on the “good” side to bring it back into center.
The long and the short of it was, I just needed to get fluid in all the lines, then bleed out the front brakes, and the valve would return to center. I continued to bleed out the back brakes, which were still not acting as expected, but I thought that would vanish once I bled out the front.
Once I got to a point I was satisfied with, it was time to do the front, which meant moving the car around. The nose of the car was currently over dirt, and the back was up on ramps. I had to roll the car forward until I was off the back ramps, then roll the car back until the front bumper was over concrete, and the passenger tire wasn’t over-top of an access hole going down to the Pensions water reserve, which is a whole other situation going on at the same time just to add some fun.
It was when I tried to roll the car forward that I noticed the rear drivers wheel had locked up. OMFG now what? I don’t know how I managed not throwing anything because by this time I was starting to get just a little frustrated with the whole endeavor.
Once again, I jacked up that tire and removed it. Yep, the drum was seized. A twist of the bleed screw on that tire and it popped loose again. As a pre-emptive measure, I loosened the spider gear (this is now a wrench-head conversation), and put the drum back on, tested the function of the emergency brake (working), and put the wheel back on.
Roll forward off the ramps, ok, have brakes, feeling normal. Yessss. Roll backwards into place. Brakes feeling good, solid pedal. Yessss. I rolled back just a little too far, and had to move forward some, rear passenger locked up. I’m starting to smell a real problem now. Fuck it. Punch the gas, drag that tire forward into place, and lets see what happens when I bleed out a caliper.
Or so I thought…
I pulled off the front passenger and started to work on that bleed screw. I needed to turn the wheel to get the wrench on, fount it to be a 10 mm instead of standard size, and after thinking that I had it broken loose just a little bit, I twisted the screw right off in the caliper.
Then I started swearing.
Now, several hours later, I still don’t know what I going to do. That problem I got a whiff of in the rear turned out to be the wheel cylinder rotating (when it shouldn’t) and causing the brake shoes to bind up at the slightest touch. The bleed screw snapped off means I’ll need a new caliper, which is hard to find in the first place, and even if I had a new one in hand, I’d have to remove the brake line from the old caliper to install it. What do you think the chances of that coming free without breaking? Slim to none, I’d say.
So what started as bleeding the brakes has morphed into a problem multiples in size. I suppose you can say that these problems all existed before I came along and started breaking things. If I hadn’t have stood on the brakes prior to coming down the hill, the rear brake line wouldn’t have burst THEN, but instead at a later date, and probably when I needed it most.
My course of action from here is uncertain. It’s been a little over two weeks now, and I’ve done nothing but work on this car. While Cass has been more patient that I’ve ever seen, I’m wishing there were someone to blame this all on so I didn’t have to bear the brunt myself, but aside from not being told the care of my car had been tranfered to a person I didn’t know, what really could be changed? Had I have been here every year to keep up with these things, then maybe things would be different, but I wasn’t, and none of that thinking changes what already is, so the question really is what’s to be done now?
If I didn’t have so much history with this car, not to mention time and money, I’d easily walk away from it and throw a match.