Manky's Pop.

[spanners]

between this pop and eastenders im on the edge of my seat every night
[/quote

f**k EASTENDERS ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[rob62]

Fingers crossed all goes well for you.

[dobber]

between this pop and eastenders im on the edge of my seat every night
[/quote

f**k EASTENDERS ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

fully agree mike, and some more.

[one arm bandit]

oh i see a couple of corrie fans aay

[spanners]

well at this time 12.30pm  i take it that no news is good news



i,ll just sit here   fingers crossed ..

[Archie]

I know 

[Manky Monkey]

Hmm. Well, the saga's gonna continue for another week I'm afraid guys.
We failed, again, but we expected to, again. The examiners are very fair & definitely not out to keep custom vehicles off the road, but it's their job to make sure everything's roadworthy & safe.
Despite Herculian efforts by Kev & Billy yesterday & about a gallon of brake fluid, we knew the brake pedal wasn't right. According to the readings from the rolling road, the brakes pass, but they had to fail it on excess brake pedal travel. On the plus side we've gone from 4 pages of failures, down to 4 sentences, with everything else passing, except the brakes. We didn't have time to bolt all the floor panels together so they're tacked in place for now. Also couldn't get the glass windscreen in, so we resorted to the temporary perspex one again. Unlike the first test, the engine now starts & runs quite nicely, with just a hint of a missfire on one cylinder. The exhaust measured 91 decibels at 3/4 throttle, (the maximum allowed is 101), with emmisions of 0.75, (the max is 3.5).
Faults listed are:

. Insufficient reserve pedal travel, (gap between the pedal & the floor when the brakes are applied).
. Pedal slowly drops when the brakes are held on.
. No dip in pedal felt when servo added, (the pedal drops to the floor on the first push, then pumps up on subsequent pushes, meaning they couldn't measure the servo movement. With the engine running, the servo should make the pedal drop slightly).
. Unable to complete brake test & visual brake test, (watching the vehicle drive & checking the front brakes lock before the backs), until the vehicle has a satisfactory brake pedal.
Full brake test to be carried out on re-test.

Kev has a few options in mind, but can't come back to the workshop until Thursday & there's not a lot I can do in the meantime, so I'm taking an afternoon off tomorrow to de-stress. I've booked another re-test, so we've got about a week to get it sorted.
Thanks go once more to Kev for meeting us at the test centre & being on hand to answer the examiner's brake questions, & Scottie the hotrod haulier for transporting the Pop down to the test centre in Southampton. Loony had to work on a customer's car, so in the end, Scottie did the driving -yeah, I am avoiding it, but mainly because now ain't the time to stuff it into a hedge cos I'm not used to driving autos & we want it to look good for the test, not like I'm struggling to drive it. Test it first, then I can crash it as much as I like.

The examiner checking that the steering self centres when the steering wheel's released -it does.

[Manky Monkey]

Unloading back at the workshop this afternoon.

[blair]

Well done, if you know what I mean. At least it's now a managable list.

[Tony oily bike]

Although it hasn't passed, that's not too bad a result, and the tester sounded like a nice guy too.

Stand in a circle chaps and pat yourselves gently on the back.

Andy, you've got yourself some good buddies around you!!

So, as the old TV progs said.... 'same time same channel for the next exciting episode'

[spanners]

its  thursday ------------------------- hows the pop ? ?

[kapri]

Houston..we have a pedal !!

While we were testing various things last week trying to figure out the problem 2 things were of interest /concern. If we locked the secondary (rear ) circuit solid we had a superb front brakes but nothing on the rear .With the rear unlocked the brake lights only came on at full travel ,switch located in front circuit and it takes only 15psi to operate it.

This pointed to the seconday circuit not getting the hydraulic lock needed to operate the front circuit correctly.

2 possible causes for it was fluid running back from the high mounted servo or lack of volume of fluid being moved. We originally started with a 19mm Beetle m/c and then moved to a 20.6 camper cylinder .This size has been perfectly adequate on several systems I've done with the same size calipers and rear slaves with the difference being my set ups used a bulkhead mounted pre mc servo as opposed to the dual remote.

The normal next step up would be a 22.2 and then 23.8. The other issue has been the inbuilt bias towards rear braking on the Beetle cylinder ,but the Camper 20.6 was the normal way round.

I spoke with Phunkie Hiboy and discussed using a different donor vehicle m/c plus he regularly used a special valve to prevent rear wheel lock up that would be beneficial.

More to come

[kapri]

I researched some more and discovered a Landrover cylinder that had what I believed to be the right bore,and flange fitting (ish), but  I needed to check the theory quickly first.

I got hold of a 23.8 Camper cylinder from mylocal GSF and we lashed it into position today. Once bled,instantly much higher pedal and acceptable reserve travel. much to our surprise though th front brakes still lock ( correctly) before the rear though I left Andy to sort out driving it to chek the visual operation  by driving it.

As I noted the weights at the SVA the front weights 510kg and the rear 650kg so the natural tendency shoudl be for the front to lock first.Once we have visual confirmation I'll do the calculations to make sure we still have the right line pressure as bigger bore drops line pressure unless you increase pedal ratio. This is a balancing act as more pedal ratio increase pedal travel though I have  a 'cunning plan' of how to deal with that.

Hoping to return Saturday to iron out the last little bits providing any /all of us can get some fuel from somewhere 

[Manky Monkey]

Maybe I'm not gonna tell you how we got on today. Maybe I'll just end this thread right here. Then you'll never kno..............








Oh. You're still here.
Alright then. Where did we get to? Well, the impossibly handsome truck builder & his band of faithful Monkey mechanics had returned safely from the lair of the evil Lord VOSA, where they had been given a seemingly impossible task -Fix those brakes & come back next week.
They hadn't reckoned on Uncle Kev's mystical mechanical mojo though.
I arrived at the workshop after work today to find Kev already ensconced in the cab. He'd bought another VW camper van master cylinder from his own pocket, (I'll email you about payment mate), & had swapped it for the previous one & made up new brake pipes. A little adjustment of the pedal pushrod & some pressure bleeding and ...
....we have brakes! Real brakes, with a working pedal & everything -just like a real car!
It's amazing. A firm brake pedal that doesn't fade or pump up after the first push, plenty of clearance between it & the floor, front wheels locking before the backs, dipping slightly when the engine's started & the servo cuts in. Everything we needed.
Kev's magic cure? As he says, he went up 2 sizes in the bore of the cylinder, from 20 point something millimetres, to 23 point something. On paper, the last cylinder should've worked, but in practice it seems we just needed a greater volume of fluid. We may still need to fit secondary residual valves up high, next to the remote servo under the dash, plus the temporary brake lines need re-making & re-routing properly, as well as a new pedal pushrod & a little tweaking of the pedal ratio, as well as a re-wired or re-routed brake light switch -but there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel. We're ...cautiously optimistic.
No time to rest on our collective laurels just yet though. We've still got a very short deadline to meet & need to check everything thoroughly.
Kev's gone away to check his measurements & figures & left instructions for us to rag it round & round the yard, drive it carefully in controlled conditions, to check the front brakes lock before the backs, as required.
Meanwhile, I've got the interior panels to sort out. I'd like to get them properly bolted in place, rather than tack-welded, in time for the re-test & tidy up a few other odds & ends.
Kev, you is a super star.  

[merv]

Knew you lot could get it done,
well done those monkeys