Draw your brakes
Forward and payaaka, manhangle and den go saaka.
That’s how the song goes, or so says the internet. I decided today that the brakes on my Sprint are decidedly more Sicilian than Jamaican (duh). You can probably guess at a few reasons: They’re Italian, stubborn, stocky, and live in the dark nether reaches below the more frequently admired parts of the car. But I never would have made this comparison (ever) if I hadn’t seen the three-shoe brake system on the Sprint. This exotic mess of tubes, cylinders and shoes is supported by a curious, triangular piece of iron that serves as fulcrum for each of the three shoes. Here’s what the brake set-up looks like on a good, clean car:
A shop-neighbor's car with its wheels off shows off the unique mechanism behind the stopping power of the 1600 Sprint.
Unfortunately mine currently looks more like this:
Not very pretty, with special thanks to iPhone camera lameness.
But the Sicilian analogy is what matters right now, and this is what I’m referring to:
Three shoes for three feet. I wonder if the engineer behind the three-shoe brake system was Sicilian? This image is the flag of Sicily, and the three-legged symbol is called the Trinacria.
And that’s how we draw the brakes on a 1600 Sprint.
Anyway, today was long, slow, but mostly fun in spite of the fact that I got maybe 4 hours of sleep last night and was slightly loopy all day long.
I had just a couple goals for the Sprint: get the front right brake drum off, one way or another (proof of success above), and start cleaning out the fuel system. Though everything seemed to take twice as long as I expected, we–I had lots of help from Matt throughout the day–were successful on both counts.
The first attempt was at the brake drum. And it was short-lived. The thing was truly stuck and no amount of whacking or yanking or prying was having any positive effect. Luckily, Matt has friends in high places and we knew we could borrow a drum puller later in the day, so there wasn’t too much wasted effort there.
When I set in on the fuel system, I had vague but optimistic hopes that I could drain it out, blow some compressed air through the lines, replace the hoses and call it a day. The gauge was reading a little under 1/2 full, so, if it was to be trusted, there was a lot of gas still in the tank. 20 year old gas, but gas nonetheless. Unfortunately, the fuel lines were beyond clogged, and when we looked in the tank there was nothing but stinky, scary, brown liquid. Obviously the tank would have to come out, and out it came.
I dropped the tank (it’s held in place by straps clipped to a crossmember under the trunk and bolted to the trunk floor at the rear) about 20 seconds sooner than I should have, meaning a gallon or so of foul smelling 1989 vintage Chevron spilled onto the floor before we were able to elevate and level off the tank. Ugh. I can still smell it now, 10 hours later.
I flirted with the idea of feeding the rest of the ancient gas to my ’63 Chevy truck-o-saurus, which is obviously a less finicky eater. But, after seeing what came out of the tank, it was clear that this egg salad sandwich had been in the sun far too long, even for my iron-stomached fire breather C30.
Final supper? Matt's '59 Sprint can't bear to watch.
So, off we went to a) drop off the tank for a thorough boil-out and refresh, b) grab a drum puller, and c) eat some mighty fine Mexican fare at Tacubaya on 4th St in Berkeley.
When we got back a couple hours later, we discovered that Matt’s Fiat sedan had been leaking gas the whole time, so our day of inhaling noxious fumes was further extended. However, we actually did get the drum off of my Sprint, and I spent the next hour or so navigating the crazy plumbing and fasteners on the backside to remove the three stuck cylinders. Here’s the unglamorous result:
The white crusty stuff is apparently sugar (yes, sugar), that forms after brake fluid seeps out for 20-odd years. I didn't taste it to verify.
The pads on the shoes were so far gone that they came off almost in the same moment that Matt said, “I think you’re gonna need to have these shoes relined.” Perhaps they were waiting for the words.
What was left of the afternoon was spent dropping a new motor (1800 twin cam) in Matt’s Fiat, which will surely be covered in a forthcoming post on giuliettas.com.
We’ll be having more of this fun tomorrow, so stay tuned for another edition.
