If you have ever replaced the shoes on a three-shoe system such as Alfa decided to produce on its interim 101 / 1600 cars, I feel your pain. Changing out brake shoes isn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds, and to most intelligent people it sounds like a pain in the arsenal. You are alternately fighting with springs, visibility, and the general slipperiness of things that are supposed to be slippery in operation, but which you wish were oh-so-grippy on installation.

I did not take pictures of this process, mostly because they wouldn’t have shown much. That’s half the problem, in fact, and an increasingly typical one I’m finding when working on just about anything old-car-related: you can either see it or work on it, but rarely both at the same time. This is especially true when you’re in the cramped confines of a wheel well. Anyway, in the end, all six shoes are on and the Sprint is awaiting only a brake fluid transfusion and shoe adjustment to be (theoretically) drivable.

As for the installation, I have very little wisdom to impart. Brute force served me well. The first two shoes go on relatively easily, as you have access to all the important bits and pieces that matter. The last shoe… well, be prepared for a slog. I ended up inventing new swear words because the usual dozen or so weren’t really helping and I needed something stronger.

Ok I take it back, I can impart a tiny bit of wisdom, though it’s not really mine and not really a miracle cure for this job. Matt has been through this a few (dozen?) times by now, and suggested that, for the last shoe, you can basically get the spring where it needs to be on the shoe and on the spindle with the shoe resting on the outside of the hub–i.e., not in its proper location, and then pry the %@&$ out of it until it snaps loudly into place at both ends. This was the only way I was able to get that last shoe to drop in.

I would be very curious to read the Alfa manual that describes this process. Either they have a very exotic tool for the job (“Using tool 101.02.009032.666, install the new shoe and proceed to adjustment”) or else they glaze over the painful reality of how difficult it actually is (“Using tool 101.02.009032.666, install the new shoe and proceed to adjustment”).

I’m going to offer a cautiously optimistic statement now, that the worst is behind me as far as brake work is concerned. I still need to bleed and adjust the brakes all the way around, but I’m pretty sure that won’t require profane neologisms, just patience and common sense (and given the condition of the adjuster mechanisms, a fair amount of PB Blaster).

Meanwhile, yesterday was the Pedal Pushers Pullover drive, and the maiden voyage of the TI after its cosmetic overhaul. The only real problem I had was when the fuel pump stopped pumping fuel. (So yes, a real problem.) Amazingly, one of the other participants, Shaun Pond, showed up in his Lancia Fulvia and supplied everything I needed to keep on going: a spare fuel pump, a bunch of fuel hose, a length of wire and some electrical connectors. Usually I carry a tool box with a bunch of random what-if parts, but I hadn’t this time, and even if I had, I don’t think a new fuel pump would have been in the box. Next time, it sure will.

And later that day:

Posted Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 10:32 pm. Filed under 1962 101 Sprint, 1966 Giulia TI, Alfa Romeo. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or Trackback from your own site.