74 Monaco Coupe Project

[jason99]

Master cylinder to brake valve loops came back from Inline Tube in less than a week.

The front flexible brake hoses were held on with clips that were practically cemented in with a mixture of dirt and grime. Both required a liberal application of Deep Creep followed by rotating them with pliers before the clips came out.

Used a cheap vaccum pump from Harbor Freight and a gatorade bottle to suck the junk out of the front brake hardlines. I thought the gatorade bottle would be rigid enough to withstand the vaccum and give me more capacity than the tiny little bottle the pump came with it. It wasn't so I ended up switching back to the little bottle.

Since I have the brake valve off I hooked another bottle filled with brake fluid up to each line and pumped it through until the fluid was clear, which it eventually was.

That was all for last night.

 

[jason99]

Got the car jacked up to flush and inspect the rear hardlines. Lucky for me the car came with the highly desirable 'gas tank removed and in the trunk' option. Not sure what the fender tag code is for that. This made getting at all the lines a lot easier.

The lines are in good shape and they all flushed clean quickly, but the passenger rear line was smashed, so that's going to go out to inline for a replacement. Considering the driver's rear is also off and will fit in the same box to Inline Tube, I'll probably just get a new one of those as well.

No rust or funny business here.

Smashed.

Minor gripe is that grime + age has made the little metal spring wrap enclosure reluctant to slide back, which made getting the line wrench on all these fittings difficult. A hose down with brakleen, a brush, and some gentle encouragement made most of them workable eventually.

I have a full set of replacement brake parts for the rear except for the shoes and the drums, but drum brakes are entirely new to me. Before I do anything I need to double check and make sure I got all the tools someone recommended in another thread.

Time permitting tomorrow, I think I'm going to start by getting the brake valve back in, the brake pedal connected, and maybe start to work on the front brakes.

 

[jason99]

Got the booster hooked back into the pedal, bracket, and brake switch after maneuvering in ways my body may never fully recover from. Next time anything needs doing under the dash, the seat is coming out and staying out until I'm done.

After that I got one of the front wheels off to start dealing with the seized front calipers while I wait on the rest of my hardlines from inline tube.

After I got the caliper off I realized I'd never even seen a brake caliper that worked liked this, so it was off to make another post.
74 Sliding Caliper Front Disc - Lubrication Points?

In the meantime I learned that to get a grease cap off you just pry it off and moved on to struggling mightily to get that pin out of the nut retainer. I have a feeling that is not the original or correct pin.

I think I know what needs to be done now, but since I need to do something with the rotors I put everything back together except putting the calipers back on so I could put the car back on the wheels.

Rather than dealing with finding a place that will resurface my rotors, jacking the car up and leaving it that way, and lugging parts around town, I may just order replacement rotors along with rear drums and shoes and just be done with it.

Lots of learning this weekend even if there was very little actual progress.

 

[LeBaron1973]

The progress was in learning something new and making a wise decision to get quality parts and install those - well done, safety first.

 

[Triple Pickle]

Over the years I’ve learned that usually on these older cars that have been sitting for a while, once you get started on the brake system you might as well figure on replacing darn near every single component.
I recently bought a 72 Polara and from what little I have driven it, it seems the brakes are great. But after just a cursory look at the brake system, I know that failure is imminent.

 

[jason99]

Work on the car has been paused since the last update because I’ve moved to a place with more garage space. Unfortunately I’ve been busy since moving with household things, but things are looking up. I finished half of the ceiling paint in the garage and just finished installing new LED bar lights for the front area.

Next up is wall paint and then the same on the back half of the garage. At this rate I might be working on the cars again come fall.

The light bars are the vapor proof 70W 4000k-temp units from Hyperikon. 4 for $195, which blew away anything from Home Depot/Lowes in both price, light output, and build quality. At 7,100lumens each they might be too bright. The other option was 4,100 each which I thought would be too dim. I guess we will see.

 

[jason99]

Final repairs on the garage and light installation is done. Both cars are now in the garage.

I need to fix a transmission cooling line on the Fury so it’s driveable, then back to work on the Monaco.

 

[bigmoparjeff]

That's a really nice garage!

To have that much working room around two Formals at the same time, you know you have a big garage.

Jeff

 

[jason99]

Thanks. It took a long time to get it all cleaned up, painted, and lights installed. Next up will be some shelving units for fluids, some kind of workspace, and a toolbox. There are some not pictured shelves in the back, but right now the only flat workspace that isn't the floor is a tiny spot next to the not-pictured sink.